Stolen Sweets
by TheRatPack
Summary: Annabelle Burke, a high school teacher and little sister of Agent Peter Burke, has just moved back to New York after the school she worked for is burned down. And as many little sisters do, she falls for the one man Peter wishes she would avoid. Neal/OFC
1. New York, New York

**Okay, so I haven't seen a whole bunch of Neal/OC stories on here yet, so I am writing my own. Obviously, I don't own any of the characters from White Collar, but any characters you don't recognize from the show are mine. Any way, please enjoy chapter one, reviews are greatly apreciated!**

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_Stolen sweets are always sweeter; Stolen kisses much completer; stolen looks are nice in chapels; Stolen, stolen be your apples-Thomas Randolph_

"Peter!" I shouted excitedly, running towards the man in question as I entered the offices of the white collar crime unit.

"Annabelle, what are you doing in New York?" my older brother, Special Agent Peter Burke, asked after a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"What, can't a little sister fly from New Orleans to New York to visit her big brother?" Peter just raised his eyebrows in response. "Oh, okay, fine, I moved back here. The school I was working for was burned down, so I called one of my friends on the city school board and she said there were plenty of jobs open in the social studies department if I wanted one."

"That was your school? That was all over the news last week. Have you talked to Elle yet? You know she's gonna be all over you when she finds out," he pointed out as I followed him towards his office.

"I was going to go see her after I stopped by here," I said breathlessly as I took in the brown haired blue eyed god sitting in front of Peter's desk.

Not noticing my change in behavior, Peter gestured towards the man, "Annabelle, this is Neal Caffrey. Neal, this is my sister Annabelle." Neal Caffrey, the man my brother had spent three years chasing. And now, they were pretty much partners. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

"Hi," I fumbled out as he clasped my small, cold hand in his, which was significantly larger and warmer. God, I hope I wasn't blushing, but the heat in my face told a different story.

"Hi, Annabelle," my name sounded amazing coming from Neal's mouth. Why is it that the first guy I am actually attracted to in the past five years, is a criminal, one my brother spent _years_ trying to arrest? He flashed me a wide grin before releasing my hand.

"So where are you staying?" Peter asked, beginning to type something on his computer.

"I got an apartment down in Queens, same building as before," I told him, fiddling with the hem of my blue sweater dress, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I felt like a teenager again, answering to my big brother while trying not to like one of his friends.

"Are you sure you want to go back there? You can always stay with me and Elle," he offered, looking up from the screen.

"Peter, you know how I feel about that," I warned, sitting in the chair next to Neal crossing my legs, which were covered by a pair of black cut off leggings, and resting my ratty old converses on Peter's desk. After receiving one of his infamous glares I moved my feet to the floor.

"Yeah, he doesn't like when people do that," Neal stage whispered to me.

"Tell me about it," I replied, shooting Peter a sassy smile after being the target of another glare. Slapping my hands on my thighs, I stood. "Well, I'm gonna go bug your wife now. Bye Peter, Neal."

"Bye, Annabelle," Peter said, turning his attention back to his computer screen.

"I'll walk you out," Neal said quickly as he jumped from his chair.

As we exited the unit and stepped inside the elevator I gave him a better look-over. "Oh my god," my eyes widened as I recognized his suit. "Is that a Devore? Where did you get one of those? It's classic Rat Pack!"

He looked taken aback as he responded, "You're into the Rat Pack?"

"Duh, how could I not be? They have to be like, the highlight of the fifties and sixties. Peter used to get mad at me because whenever he drove me places I refused to listen to anything but Sinatra."

"It's hard to believe you're related to Peter."

"Be nice, pain in the butt or not, he is still my brother," I gave him a playful shove as we reached the exit.

"And he's still arrested me on more than one occasion," Neal pointed out, but I could tell by the wide smile on his face, he wasn't even close to holding a grudge.

"Bye, Neal," I laughed at myself as instead of walking out the door as I had intended, I just ran into it after trying to push it open. "I always forget, you need to pull this one," I could feel the heat rushing to my face as I gave a half hearted wave and finally managed to get out the door and onto the streets of New York. As I started in the direction of my brother's home, I pulled out my mobile and called Elle.

"Hey, you! What are you doing?" Came my sister-in-law's cheerful answer.

"Oh, just walking to your place," I replied casually, "Are you at home?"

"Yes, I'm home! What are you doing in New York? You never told me you were coming to visit!"

"I'm not visiting. I'll explain when I get there, okay?" I held my purse closer to my body as I entered the subway and took the first seat available.

"You'd better explain short stuff," she teased, as usual picking on my rather small stature. Since I finished the sixth grade the only growth that has occurred on my part is in my breast and a slight widening of the hips. But I still stand at the same four feet eleven inches I did when I was twelve, and only weigh fifteen pounds more than I did then. Most girls are jealous when I tell them but I can't stand it. Could you imagine being this size and a high school teacher? Ninety-five percent of my students are bigger than me. And not to mention the trouble I have dating. Most guys my age think I'm in high school.

"Oh, shut it Lizzy," I retorted. When it came to Elle, I considered her to be more of a sister than just my brother's wife. And due to our closeness, we had decided I was the only one who was allowed to call her Lizzy, and only she could call me Anna-both of which were nick names we could never stand under normal circumstances. "My poor phone is ready to croak, so I'll see you when I get there, okay?"

"'Kay Anna, see you soon." And as predicted, less then thirty seconds after hanging up with Elle my phone flashed the words low-battery and then went black.

Ten minutes after getting on the subway I got off three blocks away from my brother's house. As I usually did when I came to visit, instead of knocking when I reached their door, I just walked right on in. "Oh, Lizzy!" I yelled.

"Anna!" Elle came running from the kitchen. Excitedly I threw my arms around her, hugging her tightly enough that I almost left the ground.

"I almost forgot how enthusiastic you are. Proof that you need to visit anymore," she declared as she dragged me to the couch.

"Oh I don't think that will be a problem anymore. I think I can handle the travel time from Queens to Manhattan."

Elle's blue eyes lit with excitement, "Really? Oh my god, that's awesome. But why are you leaving New Orleans? You loved it there."

"I needed a new job. There was a gas leak at the school and-"

"That was your school? Why didn't you call me?" She smacked my arm, giving me the 'you-know-better' look. She would be a great mom one day with facial expressions like that.

"I didn't want you guys worrying. Besides, nobody was inside when it happened. And I already have a new job and an apartment, so don't even bring up moving in here."

"Oh, but why not? It wouldn't be as expensive, and you wouldn't be all alone."

"Lizzy, you know I don't like people taking care of me. And I survived alone in New Orleans from my freshman year in college up until a few days ago. If I can handle it for ten years, I can handle living alone in New York less than an hour away from you and Peter.

"Fine," she pouted, knowing from past experience that I wouldn't give in. "Will you at least let me feed you, Skinny?"

I rolled my eyes and huffed, feigning annoyance, "I guess I could tolerate it since you begged me."

Laughing, she smacked me with a throw pillow, "Thanks for putting up with me; I know I'm so pushy."

"Come on, loser, I'll help you cook." I stood and pulled Lizzy to her feet. "Okay, is it just me, or is Neal much better looking than that mug shot?"

Elle stared at me in shock as she pulled a pot from the cabinet, "Tell me you aren't falling for Neal. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy. But I just don't want you getting hurt if he does go back to his old ways."

"You just don't want me to upset Peter. And no, Mom, I don't like him. I was simply making an observation." I couldn't look at her as I spoke, I knew the red dominating my face would be a dead give away.

"Whatever you say, liar," she sounded anything but convinced as she poked my side with the pot handle before setting it on the stove. "Start some spaghetti noodles for me while I get some sauce going. Maybe if you do a good job I can convince Peter to bring you new boyfriend to dinner," she added with a suggestive wink.

"Lizzy…shut up," I expertly defended myself as I filled a slightly larger pot with hot water and set it on the stove to boil. But part of me secretly hoped she was being serious. A spaghetti dinner looking at those electric blue eyes of his. Anyone else drool at the thought?

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**So what did you think? Feel free to supply constructive criticism, I know that I'm not perfect, so tell me what to fix. And I also need some help. For the life of me I can't remember the name of Peter and Elle's dog. I know they've said it in the show, but I haven't seen that episode in forever.**

**Much love, Kat **


	2. Come Fly With Me

**Wow! I wasn't not expecting so many positive reviews! Thank you guys so much! I am like super motivated when it comes to this story now! A special thanks to those of you who sent in reviews - Kanae Valentine, justareader07, princesspkia, thebloodrose, the-dark-kitsune22, Raine44354, .waves, ElizabethSeas, and Pucoan. I also want to thank KristinaB for her PM. Anyways, here is chapter two, I hope you like it as much as I do.**

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"_Our siblings push buttons that cast us into roles we felt we had let go of long ago-the baby, the peace keeper, the caretaker, the avoider…It doesn't seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we've traveled." – Jane Mersky Leder._

"Hey, girlfriend, guess what," Elle poked my side once I came down from the bathroom.

"Hey, Lizzy, what?" I mimicked.

"Your boyfriend is coming to dinner," a knowing grin possessed her mouth.

I couldn't help but blush as we headed back to the kitchen to start the plating process. "He is not my boyfriend, Lizzy. Stop saying that."

"Yet," she added in a sing-song voice. "But, seriously, Peter just called me from the car; they're going to be here any minute now." Why didn't I wear make-up today?

But regardless of my product free face and most likely tangled hair, I couldn't help but smile. It was like magic, every time I came to see my brother I turned into a twenty-five year old teenager. "Alright, Girl Genius, lets get these plates on the table," Lizzy said, grabbing two plates of the spaghetti with meatballs.

"I'm not a genius, Lizzy. I'm a high school history teacher. How smart do you think we have to be?" I pointed out as Peter and Neal walked through the front door.

Before acknowledging the two men, Lizzy told me, "Yes, you are a high school teacher, but you also finished high school at age fifteen and could have done anything you wanted, and have the three bachelor's degrees to prove it."

Neal let out an impressed whistle and I tried, unsuccessfully, to stop myself from blushing again. So I went with plan B and let my wavy brown hair fall and cover my face. "Peter," I whined and walked over to hide in my brother's chest like I used to when I was little, "Lizzy's embarrassing me."

Peter just laughed at me before he turned me around and lead me towards the table. Neal, who walked over a little before us pulled out a chair for me before sitting down in the chair next to mine. Adorable and a gentle man! He was making it very difficult for me to not like him – not that I was trying very hard in the first place, but still.

"Three degree's huh?" Neal asked, breaking the silence that was normal when Peter and I ate. When we were growing up, both of us played a lot of sports, so time for dinner was limited and we had developed the very unflattering habit of inhaling our food.

I swallowed the mouthful of pasta and wiped my mouth with my napkin before answering, "Yeah, English, history, and education."

He raised his eyebrows at me before asking another question, "How long were you in school?"

"Eight years, in New Orleans," Peter answered for me, as I had just taken another bite.

Once I was again okay for speech, I added on, "My first four years I double majored in English and history. And the four years after that, I spent on my education degree. And for the past two years I've been teaching U.S., World, and European history in high school."

Neal smiled at me and then turned to Peter. "Alright which one of you is adopted? There is no way she is your sister. She's like a female Einstein. _And_ she likes the Rat Pack." He emphasized the bit about the Rat Pack as if that exceeded my school history, which in my opinion it did. Anyone is capable of studying a lot, but it isn't everyday that you meet a fellow Rat Pack fan.

"Hey," Peter said looking slightly offended, a bit of spaghetti stuck to his chin.

Instead of defending him like I had earlier, I just laughed and poked my tongue out at him. "Ha-ha, your friend likes me better!"

"Shut up, Anna," oh, he was just trying to push my buttons now.

I shifted down in my seat and stretched so I could kick his shin under the table. "Lizzy is the only person allowed to call me Anna! No one else!"

Neal just laughed at us and Elle hid her face in her hands. Like I said, putting the Burke siblings together is just begging for immaturity. Turning to Elle, Neal asked, "Why haven't I seen this side of Peter before?"

"Oh, he saves this especially for Anna. You should've seen them when she came up for Christmas. If their parents and I hadn't intervened I think I would've had a very messy food fight to make them clean up."

Dinner, which was continually filled with childish exchanges courtesy of Peter and me, ended around twenty minutes later. It was followed by two bottles of wine, and beer for Peter, plus the original Ocean's Eleven – which Neal and I insisted upon due to the fact that nothing is better than the Rat Pack.

By the end of the movie, Peter was half asleep on the couch and I was ready to go. "Peter," I whispered and kneeled on the couch between him and Elle, using my long fingernails to poke at his sides.

"What?" he groaned, swatting at my hands.

"I'm leaving. I'll see you later, okay?" I gave him a brief hug before saying goodbye to Elle and Neal and scratching Satchmo behind the ears.

"Wait a minute," Peter said as he stood and grabbed his keys. "Let me drive you. It's too late for you to be walking by yourself."

"No Peter," I pushed him back to his spot on the couch. "First of all, I'm twenty-five years old; I can take care of myself. Second, you are tired and you've been drinking, you aren't driving anyone anywhere."

Completely ignoring my first comment, he turned to Neal, "You walk her home. And don't even think of going anywhere other than her apartment and then back to June's. I _will_ be checking your anklet."

"Come on, Peter, you still don't trust me? That hurts," Neal's eyes sparkled with humor as he pulled on his suit jacket and flipped his hat onto his head. As I walked out with Neal, Peter began to look as if he was regretting his decision and Elle shot me a suggestive wink behind his back.

Most of the conversation on the way to the subway station consisted of – big surprise – the Rat Pack. We discussed our favorite songs – his was Mack the Knife sung by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, mine being Sinatra's Come Fly with Me. But once we reached the station and got him his temporary card – he doesn't usually take the subway – I decided it was time for a new topic.

"So is it true you escaped prison to get your girlfriend back?" I figured it was a tender subject, but can you blame me for being curious?

"Yeah, I did," he replied after a moment's hesitation. "Peter thinks I should just move on. But I know Kate; she wouldn't just leave like that. Whoever she's with, she isn't with them willingly."

I couldn't help but feel hurt at that. "If you believe it's the real deal, then you shouldn't give up on her." Lie. I've talked to Peter, I know all about his talk with Kate. She dropped Neal, and now she and Fowler are just using him to get to the music box. I only wish Neal could see that. Regardless of how I feel about him, no one deserves to be lead on like this.

"So why teaching over all the other things you could have done?" Neal asked as we took our seats on the train, breaking the awkward silence that had settled.

"Well, I've always wanted to work with kids. Originally I wanted to teach preschool, but I don't have the energy or constant good mood required for dealing with little kids all day. I need a minimum of three cups of coffee to get myself going in the mornings," I ended with a weak laugh. I really give more information than necessary.

"Now I see the relation to Peter," Neal joked, his electric blue eyes once again shining with laughter.

I molded my face into an expression of mock insult, "How dare you compare me to my brother! That is just down right insulting!" We shared another laugh before slipping into easy, and mildly flirtatious, banter. Neal certainly is quite the charmer; I lost count of how many times that man made me blush in just that one half hour. By the time we reached our stop it didn't even feel like half an hour had passed.

"Neal, listen," I gasped as we stepped off the subway along with at least ten of our fellow passengers. I beamed as I recognized the voice of Old Blue Eyes playing on the station's sound system, just audible over the roaring of the trains speeding by. It was, to my excitement, Come Fly with Me, my favorite song!

Neal took me by surprise as he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the center of the platform, the music growing slightly louder as we moved away from the tracks. "Dance with me," it was more of a statement than a question as he grabbed my other hand and placed it on his shoulder before resting his hand on my waist.

I looked down at my feet as he once again made me turn bright red. He was making it hard to remember that he was taken. "I-I can't, um, dance. It kind of comes with the territory of being uncoordinated. The only movement I can manage with out endangering myself and others is playing lacrosse," I forced out. A new contempt for my clumsiness was taking form in my mind.

"Anyone can dance, Annabelle, it's all in the leading," he said with a smirk. And before I knew what he was doing, he had spun me around twice before dipping me. "See?" His face had 'I told you so' written all over it as I hovered less than a foot off the ground. I couldn't formulate any type of response as he continued leading me through the steps of a dance I didn't even know. _Why must he be taken?_, I wondered with annoyance._ I really need to stop being so picky, because every one I think is decent enough to date is either gay, taken, or both._

"We, um, w-we should, uh, probably," I stuttered as the song came to a close and our movements ceased. I could feel the eyes of everyone focused on me and Neal as we stood just inches apart, still holding our arms up in dancing position.

"Yeah, we should get you home before it gets too late," he agreed with my unfinished statement. Our arms fell to our sides and we looked at each other a moment longer before heading for the exit to the streets of Queens.

The five minute walk from the subway to my apartment building was filled with more meaningless chatter that centered largely on his working with Peter. It was amazing, the change in their relationship. A few months ago, the smallest mention of Neal Caffrey would send Peter into a rant that lasted a minimum of thirty minutes. But now, you would never know that the two friends had once been enemies.

"Thanks for walking me home," I said with a smile as I looked up at Neal.

"Any time," he replied, once again shooting me that heart-melting, knee-weakening grin that revealed his bright white teeth. "I'll see you around."

"Bye," I was breathless as I turned and walked into the building. A goofy smile found its way onto my face as I watched him turn and walk the other way. Kate was completely absent from my thoughts as I walked up to my fourth floor apartment, replaying my dance with Neal over and over again in my head.

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**So, can you tell that I was inspired to write this while watching the Notebook? The whole dancing bit just seemed to fit perfectly with Neal's charm and I couldn't resist writing it. Anyways, please review. Although after the shocking response I got for chapter one, I don't think reviewing will be an issue for readers as awesome as you guys!**


	3. I'd Cry Like A Baby

**Chapter Three: I'd Cry like a Baby**

"_Our love was so splendid don't end it so soon__."_

_~Dean Martin_

"Hey, Peter," I greeted my brother distractedly after answering my buzzing phone. I've been grading these stupid papers for almost two days now and I'm only on my fifth period class. I appreciate that they, for the most part, took the project seriously, but I really wish these papers weren't so damned long!

"Annabelle," he paused and sighed, obviously he was stressing over something. "Kate is dead."

"What?" I gasped and dropped the pen and report that were in my hands. "What happened? Is Neal okay?"

"Remember how I told you about Fowler arranging it for them to go away?" I nodded even though he couldn't hear it. "Three days ago, when they were supposed to leave, I caught up with Neal before he could join her on the plane. The jet was blown up while I was talking to him."

"Oh my God," was all I could manage to say in my state of shock. I didn't know Kate at all so her death wasn't bothering me so much as the fact that Neal could have been on that plane. Peter could be telling me right now that Neal was dead. If Peter hadn't gone and stopped him, I'd never see those electric blue eyes again when I drop by the unit to see my brother. I wouldn't have anyone to watch and listen to the Rat Pack with on Saturday nights. Neal and what could have been lost were all that registered in my brain. "Is. . . is he okay?" I asked after a short silence filled with racing thoughts.

"That's why I called you, Anna," he said. I was concerned more about Neal than anything else and ignored the fact that he had called me that. "He won't talk to _anyone_. Not even Mozzie, Alex, or June. I know he needs time but. . . Neal is my friend, Annabelle. I can't let him just shut down."

Immediately I started putting away the papers which were spread out on my dining room table. "I don't know if I can help any, but I can try. Call June, tell her I'm on my way over and to give me thirty minutes," I ordered as I slipped my converses on and all but sprinted out of my apartment, only pausing to grab my purse and lock the door after myself. I didn't even bother to pull a heavier coat on over my sweater despite the cold March air I was about to enter.

Both entering and exiting the subway I was literally pushing through my fellow New Yorkers in my rush to get to Neal. I was literally running all the way from the station until I reached June's block and then I slowed it to a jog.

"Oh, thank God," the older woman cried as she met me at the door, looking more distraught than I had ever seen her. "Annabelle, if you can't help I don't know what we'll do! He hasn't gotten out of bed since it happened! He won't even talk to Mozzie or Peter." Great, so no pressure or anything.

I took a deep breath and mounted the stairs. As I drew closer to where Neal had holed himself up, I could hear one of his Dean Martin records playing loudly.

_I'd cry like a baby if you told me goodbye  
I'd feel like a snowball on the 4th of July  
If you ever said you were leaving for good  
I'd weep like a weeping willow, honest I would  
I'd cry like a baby with a busted balloon  
I'd let out a wail that would be heard to the moon  
Our love was so splendid don't end it so soon  
Don't leave me here sighing, sobbing and a-sighing  
Crying like a baby for you_

"Neal," I called softly and rapped lightly on his door. "Neal, its Annabelle." I got no response so I turned the knob to his door to no avail seeing as it was locked. But luckily for me, I had spent enough time with him over the past six months for him to have influenced me. I pulled out the bobby pin holding back my dark brown locks and pulled it so it was easier to maneuver into the lock. After turning it this way and that for a few moments, I finally heard the click I was listening for. I opened the now unlocked door, too concerned to allow myself a satisfied grin.

"Oh, Neal," I sighed and went to sit on the edge of the bed where he was tangled in the covers. I pulled away the blanket and pillow he had lain over his face and was shocked by what I saw. I had never ever seen the man with a single hair out of place, but now . . . His dark hair was a tangled mass on top of his head, there were huge bags under his glazed over blue eyes, and he obviously hadn't bothered to shave since it happened.

"Go away, Annabelle," he said blankly as he stared at the wall ahead of him.

"No, I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do, but there is no way in hell I am going to leave you alone," I insisted and placed my slightly cold hand on his bare arm.

"Fine," he grumbled and turned his back to me and pulled his pillow and blanket back to their previous positions.

My teenage stubborn streak from growing up with Peter reared its head again. If I couldn't get him out of bed, I guess I'd have to get in bed too. As they say, if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em. I kicked off my converses and smoothed down my skirt before lying down on the other side of the bed so I was facing him. When he still didn't budge, I pulled my half of the blanket up over my head as well and moved closer until I could see him in our dark little environment. "I told you I wouldn't leave you alone, Neal," I spoke as if talking to one of my students.

"Why?" I wrinkled my nose slightly; he obviously hasn't brushed his teeth either. This was not the Neal I loved.

"Because you're my friend and I care about you. So do Peter, Elle, Mozzie, and June. We're all worried about you, Neal." I sighed before pulling out the big guns. "Neal, cutting off every one else isn't going to bring her back. And I know I didn't know her at all, but I seriously doubt she would like you doing this to yourself."

He averted his eyes down away from mine; he knew damn well I was right. "It hurts, Belle," he said quietly and I could hear his voice waver slightly. Despite the sadness of the moment, I couldn't help but smile at the nick name. Normally I hate when people abbreviate my name, but I liked hearing Neal call me that. "I don't know what to do."

"I don't know either," I sighed, my heart breaking for him. Not having any clue as to what else to do, I scooted closer, ignoring the fact that my skirt was now hopelessly bunched up around my hips, and pulled him into a hug. "I'm so sorry, honey," I soothed him as though I were a mother with a child. While he remained silent, I could feel him trembling and felt the damp spot forming on my sweater above my breasts where his face was hidden. I don't know how long I laid there with him in silence as he cried soundless tears and I rubbed circles on his bare back.

"I'm sorry," he said after a while and he pulled his face from my shirt.

"Don't be sorry, Neal," I gave him a sad smile and cupped his cheek, wiping away the moisture collected under his eyes. "You have every right to feel the way you do. But you just can't shut down forever, promise?"

"I promise," he flashed a small, sad grin of his own.

"You know how you can prove that to me?" I prompted and rested my palm on his chest. He raised his eyebrows in question and I continued, "Get out of bed, get something to eat, shower, and then brush your god damn teeth because your breath stinks," I finished with a small giggle and a playful shove to his chest.

He laughed a little bit to and a small amount of light returned to his eyes—can you say achievement?—and he pushed himself out of the bed. "Thank you, Belle," he said before grabbing clothes—another pair of sweatpants like those he was wearing, just black instead of burgundy—and walking into his bathroom. Once I heard the toilet flush followed by the sink running I righted my skirt and pulled my phone from my purse which had been abandoned on the floor.

I scrolled through my contacts until finding Peter and shot him a quick text. _I got him out of bed and into the shower, but I think we should hold off for a little while until trying to get more people in here or trying to get him out. I'll keep y'all posted. _

"Neal, I'm ordering food! What do you want?" I headed over to the bathroom door and yelled loud enough for him to hear me over the shower.

"What are you getting?" he yelled back.

"Italian."

"Lasagna."

"Okay," I replied and pressed speed dial five on my phone. Yes, I have restaurants that deliver on my speed dial, so sue me. After ordering Neal's lasagna, my spaghetti, and two orders of garlic bread I quickly dashed down to tell June I had ordered food and to just have it sent up when it arrived. After returning to his room, I removed my black and gray striped boyfriend-style sweater, leaving me in a white cami and my black knee length peasant skirt.

To relieve some of the gloom I walked to all of the windows and the door to the balcony and pulled back all of the window coverings, allowing the sun inside. I had to squint for a minute as my eyes adjusted to the drastic change in lighting, but once they did it was much better in there.

"Now _that_ is the Neal I know," I smiled when he came out in the clean sweatpants, his damp hair combed back from his freshly shaven face. "Are you feeling any better, hon?" I asked as I hugged him. I couldn't help but allow myself to enjoy the feel of his bare muscular chest underneath my cheek.

"A little," he admitted after a moment and returned the hug, his hands resting on my mid back.

"Good," I grinned and squeezed his middle slightly before pulling out of the hug. "Food should be here any minute now."

"Alright," he nodded and went over to change it to a different record. I smiled when I recognized the opening notes to Come Fly With Me, memories of when Neal walked me home floating around in my head. "I believe this is our song," he said, and something resembling his usual charming smile. It was obvious he was trying hard to act fine as he held out his hand to me.

I allowed him to start leading me through the steps of our dance, but told him, "Neal, you don't have to put on a brave face, or do things you don't want to do. I understand that you're upset and hurt, you don't have to hide it for my sake."

"If I don't make myself do things, I'd never get out of bed again. And I like dancing with you," he insisted as he spun me around and pulled me so that we were swaying together with my back to his chest.

"I like dancing with you too," I agreed, smiling largely as he spun me out again and we resumed a regular dancing position.

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**Hey everybody! I'm so sorry it took me so long to update! My family has been going through a lot, many people have been in and out of the hospital including my three year old cousin, my aunt and my grandpa. Between all the stress from that and school I just haven't had much time to write. But Ian and my aunt are both home and doing well for now and they are working hard at getting my grandpa better so I've been able to put some time into this. I really appreciate all of the positive responses I've gotten on the first two chapters and I hope you all are happy with this one! Thanks so much you guys!**

**Love, Meagan Kat.**


	4. Come Dance With Me

**Chapter Four: Come Dance With Me**

_Pretty face, I know a swingin' place, so come dance with me,  
Romance with me on a crowded floor.  
And while the rhythm swings, what lovely things I'll be sayin',  
For what is dancing but making love set to music, playin'._

_~Frank Sinatra "Come Dance With Me"_

"Neal, look, it's snowing," I directed his attention out of the window as we sat at the table eating our dinners.

"Yeah, pretty hard at that," he agreed with me. "So why did you get nominated as the team spokesperson?"

"Because you wouldn't let anyone else in. So, why am I the only one that has succeeded in getting you out of bed?"

"You only got in because you broke in," he pointed out. Then he smirked before adding, "I've taught you so well."

"Just don't tell Peter that," I laughed.

"Well, I'm sorry I made you go out of your way."

"Don't be sorry! How many times do I have to tell you that? Besides, I should be thanking you. You saved me from hours of grading and eating left over Chinese food for dinner."

"Okay then I guess we're even," he said and smiled at me. I smiled back almost immediately because, at least for now, I had _my_ Neal back. "Have I missed anything the past few days?"

"Well, I've begun a new career as a stripper named Candy. Mozzie and Alex have eloped. Oh and Peter and Elle have adopted sextuplets," I told him, totally stone-faced. He just stared at me with raised eyebrows and I couldn't help but burst out laughing. "But no, seriously, all you've missed is a lot of the same stuff. I think Elle mentioned something about Peter getting a new case and needing some one to go undercover, but I don't know for sure."

"Do you know if he found anything about . . . about the plane?" My heart sank again as I saw his mood once again sink as he struggled for words.

"I don't know . . . but I know Peter. He's looking. He may not have been Kate's number one fan, but he'll never let this go until he finds out what exactly happened," I replied and looked down at my plate, absentmindedly pushing around the food still on it. "I'm done," I sighed and pushed away the half eaten plate of spaghetti.

"Yeah, me too," he agreed and pushed away his which was empty.

"Movie?" I asked, trying to shake off the old thoughts, which would surely take me right back to _that place_ if I let them. He just shrugged and followed me over to the couch. I went about setting up the DVD player and turned on _Marriage on the Rocks_ before joining Neal on the sofa.

In a matter of moments we ended up in our usual movie watching position—he sat at one end of the couch with his feet on the coffee table and I stretched out with my head on his lap and my knees up as my feet sat on the arm rest of the two-seater, his right hand sat limp on my knee. Occasionally, he would absentmindedly rub small circles on my leg with his thumb, but would stop as soon as he caught himself. To him, it was friends sitting casually and watching a movie. It was the highlight of my day.

"I keep meaning to ask this, but always forget, or it's a bad time," he started, his thumb once again tracing small circles on my skin. "When I first met you when you came and told Peter that you moved back, you told him that you got an apartment in 'the same building as before'. I thought you moved away for school when you were only fifteen."

I shifted uncomfortably in his lap and focused on the face of Frank Sinatra as I replied, praying that he wouldn't ask about this any further. "From when I was twelve until I moved, I lived in that building with our grandmother. After Grandpa died, she was really lonely and needed company, being with out him made her really depressed and Mom and Dad were afraid to leave her alone with as many medications as she had and could potentially OD on. Our parents were going to have Peter go, but I offered to go live with her instead."

"Why did you offer to go? You were only twelve."

"Peter had friends and a girlfriend that he probably would have ended up losing had he moved to Queens and changed schools. I didn't," I shrugged, still uncomfortable with the conversation.

"But you had friends too. . ."

I looked up at him and shook my head. "Negative. I was a twelve year old tenth grader. Peter and Elle were my friends. I really didn't have any friends until round two of college and then when I started working."

"Oh, sorry," he said awkwardly, his hand stilled on my knee. Way to go Annabelle. Leave it to a Burke to make a situation awkward.

"Its fine," I shrugged and turned back to the movie.

"Why doesn't he like that you live in Queens again?" Jesus, what is with the questions today? Well, I guess it probably keeps Kate off of his mind, so I really shouldn't be complaining too much. But still, why this? I don't want to talk about this.

And that is exactly what I said to him.

"Why not?" His hand moved from my knee and he began gently running his fingers through my hair.

"I just . . . I can't. Not tonight. Ask Peter if you want to know so badly," I snapped. I really didn't mean to. But I did. "I'm sorry," my voice was softer this time and I moved so that I was curled up small with my knees to my chest and I rested my upper hand on top of his leg. "I didn't mean to sound nasty. I just really don't want to talk about this, okay?"

"Alright," he agreed. But I could tell from the tone of his voice, he was either asking again later, or he was asking Peter. I hope he asks Peter. I don't want to talk about it.

**Neal**

After the little disagreement over why Peter doesn't want her living in Queens, Belle fell asleep curled up on my lap. I was disappointed both because I lost my distraction and because I was now worried about what could have happened to make her so nervous about the subject. The emptiness I had been feeling for days had been filled by Belle, and now that I had lost her as a distraction she was replaced by worry for her. I glanced at her phone, which she had silenced after the movie started. She had missed two calls. One was from Peter and the other from Elle.

I picked Annabelle up and put her in my bed before walking back and grabbing my own phone and then walking out to the dining area.

"Neal?" Peter sounded confused when he picked up. I can't blame him.

"Yeah, it's me. Look, I need to ask you something about Belle," I said, not in the mood for him to try and talk about what happened three days ago. I looked at the clock. Three days, six hours, twenty four minutes ago.

"Belle? She lets you call her Belle?"

"Yes, Peter, she does. Can we stay on track please?" I sounded more like him than myself.

"Yeah, sorry."

"Why don't you want her living in Queens again? I asked her if she knew but she snapped at me and wouldn't talk about it," I slowly paced the floor, stealing glances at where she was laying whenever I was facing that direction.

"When she was fifteen, right around when she started getting responses from all the colleges, she was originally going to stay in state because she didn't want to leave Grandma alone and she didn't want to be too far away from the rest of us either. She had applied out of state, but hadn't really planned on going to any of them."

"So what changed that?" I asked and hoped that he would end up getting to the point quickly.

"There was a little girl in the same building that she and Grandma would babysit every once in a while. She was two or three at the time, but they had been taking care of her since she was born. Annabelle was extremely attached. Anyway, right around the time the acceptance letters started coming in, they were watching the girl—Maya?—and Grandma sent Anna to go get lunch for all of them because there wasn't enough stuff in the apartment to cook something.

When she got back she saw two men running out of the building covered in blood and they threw something into the alley. She used a payphone in the lobby and called me to come and go up with her because she was scared to go up alone. I was working in the area at the time—I was a cop then, it was right before I joined the FBI—so it only took me a little while to get there. I walked up with her and we found the door wide open and there was blood on the door frame. I called for back up and told her to wait out in the hall, but she followed me in anyway. Both of them were dead in the living room. Grandma was shot twice and stabbed twenty times. Maya was stabbed fifty seven times. I tried to get Anna out before she saw it, but didn't move soon enough."

At this point I was sitting down at the table in shock. Who would do that to anyone? Let alone an old woman and three year old girl.

"Anyways, she wasn't the same after that. She'd never really been social to begin with, but she completely withdrew after it happened. The only people allowed in her room were me and Elle, and she still wouldn't even talk. We were lucky if we could get yes and no answers from her. And getting her to eat was a whole different issue. She'd probably eat half a meal once a day, if that. As soon as she got the letter from the school in New Orleans . . . she probably would have run there if she had no other way."

"Oh my god. Why would she want to live in that building again?"

"After she got over the initial shock of it, she started pretending she was stronger than she was. She still does it, which is probably why she moved back there. She wants to prove to everyone that she's fine and can take care of herself. She's always been a headstrong little thing, if nothing else."

I pulled the conversation with Peter to a close, avoiding any and all questions on how I was doing, and then went and stole the half of the bed that wasn't occupied by Belle.

**Annabelle**

I woke up as soon as Neal picked me up and sat me on his bed and pulled the covers over me. I kept my eyes closed both because I wanted to fall back to sleep and because I wanted to know what he was doing. He called Peter. He was on the other side of his little apartment area and he was talking quietly, so I couldn't make out what was being said. But I knew what he was asking and had a basic idea of what Peter would say back. This was confirmed when I noticed that Neal was doing far more listening than anything else.

"Now do you know why I didn't answer you?" I asked softly after he slid into the other side of the bed.

"I thought you were sleeping," he said and turned back to face me.

"I was. I woke up after you moved me," I answered. "I followed him because I was afraid to be alone. I thought that if the two guys I saw had done something, they might come back for me and I didn't want to be alone for them to get me. I moved back to the same building because I was tired of running from it. I've never been able to accept what happened because I've never been able to face it. I had a panic attack when I had to testify and passed out on the stand. After that I ran for Louisiana and stayed away for ten years." I could feel the heavy tears rolling down my cheeks and onto the pillow as I told Neal all these things that I had never even said to my therapist in New Orleans.

"You don't have to go back to the same building to face it, Belle. That's something you have to do in your head," he said and pulled me to him.

"Neal, I was only gone for fifteen minutes, if that! There was so much blood! I was so scared; I thought it was my fault. If I hadn't left maybe I could have done something," I cried into his chest, my body shaking as violent sobs tore through me.

"Annabelle, it wasn't your fault. If you were there when it happened you'd be dead too," Neal whispered as he rubbed my back much in the same way I had done for him this afternoon. He whispered sweet, comforting things in my ear until I had myself under control.

"Some day, huh," I laughed weakly and hugged him tighter.

"Yeah, some day," he agreed and again began stroking my hair. "They sent you in to make me feel better, but you're the one that ended up in my bed and crying."

"You did it first," I defended myself but laughed a little none the less.

"That is true," he replied and smiled down at me, causing me to smile in return. It had been an emotionally trying day and we both fell asleep shortly thereafter, still holding onto each other tightly.

When I woke up I still had Neal's left arm under me and the fingertips of his right hand were slowly trailing up and down my side. "Stop that tickles," I giggled, still half asleep. "Wait, what time is it?" I asked and snapped my face up to look at him.

"Noon," he answered and grinned at me, his blue eyes dancing.

"Shit I have to work," I groaned and attempted to get out from where I was tangled in the covers only to have Neal pull me back down.

"Look outside, Belle. We're snowed in. Schools are closed and we aren't going anywhere," he said and pulled me back to him. Is this that thing they always talk about where people get attached to the person that is taking care of him? I've always wanted Neal to look at me like that—the way he used to look when he would talk about Kate—but not if it isn't real.

"Neal . . ." I started, but wasn't really sure how to approach the subject. So I didn't sound like a total moron, I quickly made something up. "I need a shower . . . and a toothbrush. I'd prefer not to kill you with my morning breath." I laughed awkwardly.

"Oh yeah, there are towels in there and I think there is a spare toothbrush under the sink. If not you can just borrow mine, it's not like I have anything for you to catch," he told me with a slight grin.

"Thanks," I blushed and quickly escaped to the bathroom. Turns out, I did have to share his toothbrush, not that it really mattered all that much. Like he said, it's not like he had anything I could catch. After that I quickly used the bathroom, realizing I hadn't gone since sometime yesterday afternoon, and then hopped in the shower.

"Oh hell," I groaned when I got out and wrapped myself in a towel. I just realized, I didn't have any other clothes. Awkward. "Hey Neal," I called and opened the door a crack, clutching the dark blue towel tightly to my body.

"Yeah," he responded and approached the door.

"I don't have any clean clothes," I muttered and looked down, extremely embarrassed.

He just grinned and held out some clothes to me. "June asked Elle to pick some things up from your apartment last night. June brought them up earlier this morning; I forgot to tell you before you got in the shower."

"Thank you," I grinned widely and resisted the urge to open the door the rest of the way and hug him seeing as I was in nothing but the towel which only reached my upper thigh. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea. Thank god for Elle and June. I'm just happy she remembered to grab bras and underwear, although it was kind of uncomfortable that Neal just had to handle them. Again, awkward.

I quickly changed into the jeans and Michael Jackson _Thriller_ tee shirt which hung off of one shoulder—I may be a Rat Pack fan, but that doesn't change the fact that I was born and raised in the 80s—and towel dried my hair before rejoining Neal.

"Feel better?" he asked as I joined him at the table and accepted the cup of coffee he handed me.

"Much," I grinned and allowed the cup to warm my slightly cold hands. "But really, I'm just happy I don't have to work today."

"Oh, yeah, teenagers must be fun to deal with all day," he laughed.

"Yeah, most of them are pretty obnoxious. But thankfully I teach a lot of AP classes and in there most of the kids are fairly decent and actually care about school. It's the honors and standard kids that I have a lot of problems with," I told him as I sipped on the Italian roast, which was absolutely the best coffee I'd ever had.

"History and art were my favorite classes in high school," he grinned at me.

"Same here and I really liked English too. I actually wanted to be a writer when I was younger, but people were always trying to talk me out of it so I just went with teaching instead. They were probably right anyway. That field is so hard to get into and make a name for yourself. I was good, but not good enough for all that," I said sadly. "Writing probably saved my life when I was younger. It was in many ways my only escape. I'd had no friends to speak of and there was only so much I was willing to talk to Peter about. After college I had to give it up for the most part because I didn't have time. I still write short stories and poems here and there, and I have a little bit more time for it over the summer. But it's not really a big part of my life anymore."

"How do you know you weren't good enough? Did you ever take anything to a publisher that told you so?" He asked and raised his eyebrows at me.

"No," I admitted blushing slightly, knowing he was right. I gave up with out ever even really trying.

"Then send something in, see what they say. The worst they can do is send it back to you and tell you what's wrong with it. And then from there you know what changes to make before you try again," he told me, truth ringing in every word. Elle and Peter had told me something similar before, but I had dismissed their words as obliged statements.

"Okay," I said quietly before really thinking about it. Why is it that he can get me to do pretty much anything? Oh yeah, because I totally love him. Duh.

An hour later we were once again in our classic movie position watching _Ocean's Eleven_. Butterflies in my stomach were going stir crazy as he started gently toying with my hair.

I was snowed in with Neal for almost three days. But by the second day we were already going crazy with boredom. Or rather I was. I think my behavior might have been enough to keep him entertained. I was constantly fidgeting and couldn't concentrate on anything. We had already gone through all the Rat Pack movies he had and there was nothing on TV worth watching. There was something I really wanted to do, but I won't go into details on that one. Besides it's too soon after Kate for Neal to go for it. Hey, you would want to too if you had to see him day after day, occasionally with out a shirt on. Seriously, who wouldn't want to be with him?

"Neal, I'm bored," I whined and rested my head on his shoulder on the third day.

"Yeah, I know. You said the same thing two minutes ago," he laughed and looked down at me. "I think I have an idea of something we can do," he added with a wink. That is so suggestive it isn't even funny. Call it cabin fever but I am seriously considering jumping him right now. Especially with the way that shirt fits him. I miss the lack of shirt of the last few days, but since he started actually getting dressed again I'm happy he put that one on.

"I think this might be becoming our thing," I giggled slightly as he put on Frank Sinatra's "Come Dance With Me" and then pulled me from the couch and started leading me through a new fast paced dance.

"If you want it to be our thing it can be," he replied with a grin and spun me out quickly and then pulled me back, closer than before as we continued to swing around the floor. A moment later he began to sing along with Frank. "_Hey there cutes, put on your dancin' boots and come dance with me, Come dance with me, what an evening for some Terpsichore. Pretty face, I know a swingin' place, so come dance with me, Romance with me on a crowded floor. And while the rhythm swings, what lovely things I'll be sayin', for what is dancing but making love set to music, playin'. When the band begins to leave the stand and folks start to roam, as we wing home, cheek to cheek we'll be, Come on, come on, come on, come on and dance with me." _Neal is charming, sexy, smart, _and _an amazing singer; why do I always want men that are way out of my league?

I thought I had kept my face in the same smile as when he had first began singing, but it must have faltered as I thought that because he noticed. "Are you okay, Belle?"

"Yeah," I lied and gave my smile new life.

"Annabelle, you shouldn't lie to someone like me. I can always tell," he chided me with a slight smirk and stopped his movement, bringing his hand from my hand and sliding it down to me waist.

"I . . . um," I stuttered rather unattractively and dropped my hands to my sides.

"Annabelle, there's nothing you can't tell me," he said and one hand moved to my lower back and the other came up to wind in my hair.

I couldn't help myself and brought my hand up to form to his cheek. He had a slight five o'clock shadow and the short hairs were rough against my palm. Slowly our faces drifted closer together until we were mere millimeters apart. "Neal," I whispered slightly, making sure he didn't want to stop himself now. I don't want any regrets from either of us if this actually happens. He didn't answer me and instead pushed his lips to mine. It started out gentle and slowly gained passion as he pulled me closer and he moved us to the nearest flat surface—the couch—before breaking away from me slightly to lay me down before laying on top of me.

The roads were cleared that night, but I spent the night again anyway. I found something else he was amazing at and we both took advantage of it.

* * *

**So can I say how much I love all you readers? You guys are so awesome! I was shocked by how many favorites, alerts, and reviews I got after chapter three! And I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter. It was kind of challenging to write, hence the delay in posting. And I know I was kind of vague towards the end, so if you are wondering yes they did have sex. Anyways, I can't wait to see what you all have to say on this chapter and I will start working on the next update ASAP.**

**Love, Kat**


	5. Night and Day

**Chapter Five: Night and Day**

_Night and day, why is it so  
That this longing for you follows wherever I go  
In the roaring traffic's boom  
In the silence of my lonely room  
I think of you day and night_

Night and day, under the hide of me  
There's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me  
And this torment won't be through  
Until you let me spend my life making love to you  
Day and night, night and day

_~Frank Sinatra, "Night and Day"_

The fourth day I woke up in Neal's arms was the first time in a long time I'd woken up naked in some one else's bed. And it was, admittedly, only the second time total. _Oh god, what if he regrets it and hates me now, or everything is all awkward. How could I sleep with a guy less than a week after his girlfriend died? Let alone have sex with him four times in one night! What is wrong with me?_ My thoughts were panicked as I eased myself from his arms and quickly grabbed my clothes and pulled them back on. I felt guilty and confused all at once. Part of me knew that it was so wrong, but the other side of me begged to differ.

_He was the one that laid you on the couch and took all of your clothes off, _my inner voice argued. _He could have stopped anytime he wanted, but he didn't. It was his idea three out of four times._

I pulled my tee shirt tighter around my body and escaped to the bathroom after grabbing some fresh clothes from my bag. One, I needed to pee, shower, and brush my teeth, and two I needed to be alone and think before he woke up. By the time I was cleaned up and dressed I had decided I wouldn't bring it up and if he said something then we would talk about it. When I walked out he was up and sitting at the table drinking coffee. There was another cup waiting for me in front of the chair next to his.

"Morning," he said with a grin.

"Morning," I replied, somewhat awkwardly.

He jumped right to the point. "Belle, do you regret what we did?"

"What? No . . . why? Do you?" I asked, feeling almost on the verge of tears.

"I'm not sure," he said honestly. "Part of me has wanted something like that to happen for a while. Part of me feels like it was too soon after . . . after Kate."

"I expected about as much," I half laughed and trailed my finger around the edge of the coffee cup. "If you want me to leave, or if you want to just pretend it never happened . . . I'll understand," I told him. I ignored the pain it caused just to say those words.

"I don't want either of those things, Annabelle. But I think I need more time before we take things further," he answered.

"Alright," I forced a pathetic excuse for a grin onto my face. "I should probably go soon anyway. I have to get papers graded so I can give them back tomorrow and my clothes here are running low," I added quickly.

He just nodded. He knew I was lying just as well as I did. He needed time, and now all I needed was to go home and call Elle.

He wanted to walk me home, or at least to the subway station, but I wouldn't let him. He kissed me again before I left, as if I wasn't already hurt and confused. I called Elle from the station. She said she would drive over and we would probably get there around the same time. I had just reached the front door of the building when she pulled up. I had started crying after Neal kissed me and hadn't stopped since then.

"Come on, let's get out of the cold and you can tell me what happened," she sighed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we walked inside. Once we entered my apartment and she sat with me on the couch, I broke down from streaming tears to full on hysterical sobs and hid my face in her shoulder. She let me cry for a while before making me look at her and asking me what happened.

"I had sex with Neal," I wailed and hid my face in my hands to hide my tears as I reverted back to the heavy sobs. "I feel like such a . . . slut! How could I let something like that happen? His girlfriend was just murdered and I slept with him!"

"What did he say? Did he say he wished it didn't happen?"" she asked and gently rubbed my arm.

"He said he was partly glad it had happened, but he also kind of wished we had waited. He said he needed more time before anything else happened between us," I told her through hiccups.

"Then honey, give him time," she said and smoothed back my still partially damp hair. "There's no need to get this worked up until after he has some more time to heal. If after that he says no, that is when to get upset. I know you're hurt, but you never know, he may decide after a while that he wants to give you two a real shot."

"Has anyone ever told you that you will be an amazing mom some day?" I sniffed and gave her a watery smile.

"Try seven months," she winked at me.

"What? You're kidding!" I actually smiled and hugged her tightly. "When did you find out?"

"Last night, I took a home test. I came here from my doctor's, she had just confirmed it for me when you called," she informed me, absolutely glowing.

"Does Peter know?"

"No, I'm meeting him for dinner tonight and I will tell him after dinner, probably on our way home."

"Okay, becoming an aunt is definitely making me feel much better," I admitted with a slight laugh.

"Good, because I think you need retail therapy, and I have to get a hot dress to wear tonight," she giggled.

**Neal**

"So, let me get this straight," Mozzie started as he moved his chess piece, "your girlfriend—who by the way you escaped prison and spent months looking for—just died and you've moved on to the Suit's sister?" Leave it to Mozzie to put it so bluntly.

"I haven't moved on, as you so eloquently put it, Mozzie. It was a heat of the moment thing and we are both taking some time to see if it's real or not," I told him and moved my own piece.

"Both of you need time? Or are you just telling her you do because you're still clinging to something that you haven't been able to let go of for months?"

"Kate wasn't using me Moz, and I will find who did this. I do feel something—something strong—for Belle. I know that. But I never lost what I felt for Kate, I can't just forget about her."

"Just don't lose the Suit's sister in the process. Like it or not, she's good for you. You, my friend, need to learn how to love two people," he glanced at me over his glasses. "Oh, by the way, check mate."

**Annabelle**

Shopping with Elle was exactly what I needed to keep my mind off of Neal. Retail therapy can do wonders. Eventually we found her a form fitting black dress. It had a scoop neck and about one inch wide straps and hit her a little above the knee. I ended up getting some more clothes for work and some for when I was just sitting around at home. I finally got a new black pencil skirt, an item I used to wear all the time but hadn't been able to wear for a few years. For a while in New Orleans I had gained some weight because of some anti-depressants my therapist had prescribed to me. After that she put me on some anti-anxiety medications as well, but had to change the anti-depressant because they had reacted badly to each other. The new anti-depressants combined with the anti-anxiety messed with my appetite and I dropped a lot of weight quickly and none of my clothes had fit. Until today I had never been able to find a skirt like that old one that fit me right.

While I was with Neal I had gone with out my medicine; I hadn't felt like I needed them.

As her date time drew closer, Elle decided it was probably time to call the shopping to an end. She asked if I wanted to come over, but I declined. I had a lot to do at home. Instead of going to my apartment, however, I went to the one next to mine. Shortly after moving in, I ran into Caroline Edwards and her two year old daughter, Lena. We talked for a while and almost immediately hit it off. We had grown close enough that we began calling each other 'Twin'. Diana began calling me 'Aunt Annabelle'. She let me in not even thirty seconds after I knocked.

"Uh oh, Twin, what happened?" she asked after a quick glance at my face. I told her the entire situation with Neal. "Wow, that is so fucked up," she stated bluntly as I finished my retelling.

"Elle said to just give him the time to see what happens. I know she's right, just . . . it just _hurts_. Part of me wants to wait for him. Part of me wants to just say 'forget it; you'll only be hurt again'. I know he loved Kate, and he still does. And it scares me to death that I'm never going to be as good as she was. He's always talked about her as this perfect girl. I can never be that for him," I told her as I began to cry again.

**May 25**

"Alright," I addressed my seventh period class before the bell rang and crossed the room to open the door after hearing a knock. "Don't forget to finish that review packet over the weekend. We'll have a ten minute review session at the beginning of class on Monday and then I'll give you the written part of the test and we'll have the multiple choice portion on Tuesday." I didn't look at who it was at the door, but whoever it was followed me in. As soon as I finished talking, the bell rang and they all put up their chairs and rushed out. There were one or two stragglers but I was done for the day.

"Hey," I said awkwardly when I turned and found myself facing Peter . . . and Neal. I had only talked to Neal a few times since that uncomfortable morning after. It was always just obliged 'hello's and 'how are you's. I gave Peter a hug and asked him what they were doing in the school.

"We need your help on a case," Peter told me. I ignored Neal as he looked me up and down, and tried not to notice how well his pants fit him or how amazing he looked with the sleeves of his light blue shirt rolled to the elbows underneath the gray vest. I also didn't notice that he was wearing that hat.

"What do you mean; you need my help on a case? What good could a high school teacher be for a white collar case?" I asked and used my water bottle to wet a tissue so I could clean the marker off of a transparency.

"Nick Halden needs a date for a masquerade," Neal said with a slight trace of a smirk.

"Who is Nick Halden, and how will me going on a date with him help you on a case?"

Peter just pointed to Neal. "He is Nick Halden and the host of the masquerade is suspected of art forgery. We managed to get him an invitation, but he is required to have a date." He noticed the eyebrow raise I shot his way and added, "He's a bit . . . eccentric. Anyway, we need to get him in there so he can get a look at the artwork and confirm whether or not it is a forgery."

"Why can't you get Lauren or Diana or some one to go with him?"

"The masks come off at midnight and he's seen them all before. He's done his research. The only one he isn't expecting is Neal. He seems under the impression that he wouldn't be sent anywhere with out one of us with him."

"When?"

"Tonight," they answered simultaneously.

"I'm babysitting. Caroline has to go to her custody trial so I am going to be watching Lena." But when I saw the look on Peter's face I amended, "I can call Caroline and ask her if its okay for Elle or some one to go over and watch her."

"I don't like asking you to do this, but you're our last chance before he leaves town tomorrow afternoon," Peter told me before leaving. "Neal, take her to find something to wear tonight. Don't worry about the radius but if you leave Manhattan I'm throwing you back in prison."

"Elle's been sick and keeping him up late," Neal told me once Peter had left the classroom.

"I know, he _is_ my brother; Remember?" I tried to keep any bitterness out of my voice. "I need to call Caroline and Elle." Ten minutes later Caroline had confirmed that it was fine if Elle watched Lena instead and Elle confirmed that she could take care of her for a few hours. She said it'd be good practice for later on.

"You're mad," he stated as I began straightening up my classroom.

"I'm not mad, Neal. I'm hurt. You did things you didn't mean and we haven't really talked since. I'm sorry. I knew you loved her and I never said stop. I knew you'd regret it and I let it happen anyway."

"Annabelle, I don't regret being with you. I'd wanted you for the longest time. I still want you. The only reason I didn't want to get into anything right then is because it felt like I was betraying her by being with you only a week after she died. But I've always cared about you, Belle. Not as Peter's sister, not as a friend. I wanted you more than I should have from the beginning." He grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me to face him.

"What about Kate?" I couldn't not ask him. I knew he meant what he was saying, but I needed to know if she was still going to be more important.

"I still love and care about her, and I'm still going to look for who did this to her. But you're the one I'm _in_ love with now. I don't want to let you go." I had to absorb what he said for a moment. He's in love with me? Neal Caffrey is _in love_ with _me_? He looked almost nervous for a split second before I smiled happily and wound my arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. Neal smiled into the kiss and placed his hands on my lower back to pull me in closer.

"I love you," I told him once we separated to breathe. "Now, what do we tell Peter?"

"How about we solve this case first, then we worry about Peter," he smirked and kissed me again. "Come on, we need to get you something to wear tonight, and we both need masks."

By six we had gotten what we needed and were back at June's to get ready.

"I'm glad to see you back," June smiled at me and patted my arm when Neal and I passed her on the main stairs.

"Thanks," I smiled and blushed before proceeding up the stairs with Neal.

I'd be lying if I said we didn't fool around for about an hour before actually getting ready. Can you blame me? We went two months barely seeing or speaking to each other.

"We need to get ready," he sighed. I glanced at the clock and it read 7:15. But I didn't want to go to some masquerade to go undercover. I wanted to stay in bed with Neal. I groaned and hid my face in his neck. He chuckled slightly and kissed my hair. "We can come back in here later if you really want to," I could hear the smile in his voice. "But now we have to get ready to go. Call it our first date if you want." He threw me his shirt and my underwear before pulling on his boxers and winking at me.

"How romantic, helping you catch an art forger," I giggled and rummaged through my purse to find my brush. He just smirked at me and grabbed a white button up, a black tie, and his black Devore from the closet. Since I didn't have my straightener or a curling iron with me I just brushed my hair and let it sit in loose waves before grabbing the make up I had purchased earlier and retreating to the bathroom. I went with a silvery gray eye shadow, black eyeliner, and dark red lipstick.

I returned to the bedroom area a few minutes later and grabbed the lacy, black, floor length, strapless dress from where I had hung it in his closet. "Zip me," I told him and held the dress up as I waited for his assistance.

After the dress was secure on my body, he turned me to face him. "You look amazing," he grinned, his electric eyes glittering. I just blushed and smirked before slipping on the matching black lace gloves and handed him my phone to put in his pocket. He grabbed the bag with our masks in it and handed me mine before slipping on his own—his was plain black and hid the upper portion of his face; mine was black with silver detailing and also only covered the upper half of my face. "Let's go," he grinned and linked arms with me and led me out. The masquerade had begun.

* * *

**So I hope you liked this one as much as the last one! I was seriously so excited with the response I got! Almost twenty reviews on one chapter! I am so shocked and pleased, it's impossible to describe. I can't wait to see what you all have to say on this update. **

**And on the subject of updating, it will be a little while before my next one. As I have already informed some of you, I will be house sitting from the eleventh to the seventeenth and then again from the thirty first to the seventh. I will try to get a chapter posted during the week inbetween when I am actually home, but I can't say for sure. But the good news is, I am taking a notbook and my hard copies with me, so I will be drafting and brainstorming the entire time. And not to mention I will have the new season for inspiration!**

**Love, TheRatPack.**


	6. Luck Be a Lady

**Chapter Six: Luck Be a Lady**

_Lets keep this party polite  
Never get out of my sight  
Stick with me baby, I'm the guy that you came in with  
Luck be a lady tonight_

_~Frank Sinatra, "Luck Be a Lady"_

"Nervous?" Neal asked me as we neared the home where this party was being held. He moved his arm so it was around my shoulders and pulled me in closer to his side.

"No," I lied and rested my head on his shoulder.

"What have I said to you about lying to me?" He teased and kissed the top of my head. "We'll be fine. There are agents all around the neighborhood keeping an eye on things, and I'll be with you the whole time. The only thing you have to worry about is remembering our names. Peter gave me this to give you." He pulled an ID card from his pocket and handed it to me. It had the same picture as on my real ID, but instead of saying my name was Annabelle Lynn Burke, it said I was Kristina Marie Halden and I had apparently aged five years.

"I never thought I'd see the day when my own brother provided me with a fake ID, let alone one that made it appear as if I was married to you," I laughed slightly. The butterflies in my stomach began reproducing and flying around even more as we grew ever closer to this supposed art forger's house. Or rather his mansion, I realized as we got within sight of the place.

"Get ready," Neal murmured to me with a smirk as we began our walk up the steps to the main doors towards the bouncer-looking guy who was apparently checking invitations. Glad to know at least he knows what we're doing here, because I sure don't. After glancing at Neal's invitation and both of our IDs the guy at the door just nodded once and stepped aside so we could walk in. Neal as always gestured for me to go first and then once we were both inside we were almost immediately apprehended by a man who looked to be about mid-fifties with graying hair and a well trimmed beard, wearing a black suit with a red mask.

"Nick Halden, I presume. I've been awaiting your arrival. And who, may I ask is this lovely creature?" He asked and grabbed the hand that wasn't squeezing the hell out of Neal's side and kissed it. I held onto Neal tighter and I felt him tense up. Was he seriously jealous of this creep? Or is he pulling a Peter and just going all protective?

"This is my _wife_, Kristina," his voice stayed cheerful as if he was having normal party conversation, but I caught the slight emphasis on 'wife'. I'd never admit this to anyone except maybe Caroline—and only after many drinks for me and intense persuasion on her part—but I actually really liked hearing Neal introduce me to some one as his wife. It'll probably never happen again after this, because I know my relationship track record and I will probably figure out some way to fuck this up, but I fully intend on enjoying it while it lasts. I blushed when I realized I had been expected to say something, but Neal covered up for me, "You'll have to excuse her, she's always been very shy."

"Oh, I'm sure I can get her to warm up to me," the man laughed, finally released my hand, and then nudged Neal as if they were sharing some great joke. He laughed politely but tightened the arm around my shoulders. "Please, Mr. and Mrs. Halden, enjoy the party. Masks come of at midnight and after that we can discuss taking a look at the, ahem, merchandise we were discussing on the phone, Nick." After a wink at me and shaking Neal's hand he gave us both a shark-like grin, turned on his heel and went to greet those that had entered after Neal and me.

"Okay, if he's going to be flirting with me the entire time, I'll need multiple drinks," I hissed to Neal and grabbed a glass of champagne off of a waiter's tray.

"Relax, you're doing great," he replied under his breath and kissed me quickly.

"Won't the agents have seen that and tell Peter? We're right by the window," I whispered nervously. I love my brother, but when it comes to guys I date, he can get scary and fast.

"Let them see, we're supposed to be married, remember?" he grinned at me, his eyes dancing with humor.

"You are bad," I laughed and kissed him back.

"Admit it, that's why you love me."

"Only a little bit why," I giggled and sat the already emptied glass on a table and allowed him to pull me to the area of the room where everyone was dancing. "I feel like I'm in the masquerade scene from _Phantom of the Opera_, which is really awesome because that's my favorite scene." Yeah, that kind of talking right there is why someone my size shouldn't drink, even a small amount goes right to my head and fast. I wasn't quite drunk yet, but if I had one or two more I would be either there or mighty close to it.

He just laughed at me and let me rest my head on his chest as we danced. That was the most comfortable I had been from the time we started getting ready. Since I had gone to the bathroom to do make up I had been growing more nervous by the second. But dancing with Neal was something I was familiar with, and it allowed me to easily forget what I was there for and relax, even if it did only last for a few songs.

But then Neal said something about socializing and trying to get some kind of information. I was nervous and it was making me kind of apathetic, so I just kind of agreed with whatever he said and smiled pleasantly at the people he talked to. I only really spoke to other people when they asked me questions, and my voice almost always came out one or two octaves higher as it always did when I was nervous. People asked us how long we had been married, Neal answered five years. When they asked if we had children they usually directed it at me, so when Neal just looked at me expectantly, I just told them, "Karina turns one in a few days." They always said to wish her a happy birthday on their behalf. Neal always added that she looks more like me everyday. In some cases, women would look at me with jealousy and point out that I had bounced back from the pregnancy quickly; it had taken them x amount of years to get back to their wedding weight.

I was still nervous, but this was not turning out nearly as exciting as I had expected. The only thing that really struck me as odd so far was the greeting we had gotten from the host as soon as we arrived, who's name, Neal had to remind me twice, was Tony Santoro. But something in the back of my mind told me this was just like the quiet before a storm.

It was five minutes before midnight and I needed another drink. Neal was in the middle of a conversation and I just excused myself and headed to the bar which was situated a few feet away, unfortunately though my view of him and his of me was cut off by other, probably drunk judging by their behavior, guests. I asked the bartender for a vodka on the rocks and leaned on the bar, supporting myself on my elbows.

"Are you enjoying the party?" Santoro asked me, making me jump as I didn't see him coming.

"Mhmm," I forced a pleasant grin on my face and took a sip of the drink the bartender had placed in front of me. It was strong and burned going down, but if this guy was going to be flirting with me again I would need it.

"I wasn't aware that you were a mother, you certainly don't look it," he said, that shark's grin reappeared on his face.

"Um, thanks . . ." I replied, unsure of what else to say to him. The clock finally struck midnight, the chimes ringing loudly through the giant hall.

"May I?" he asked and gestured to my mask.

"Uhm, sure," I muttered and blushed. I tried not to flinch away when he reached up and pulled off my mask.

"Even more beautiful than I imagined." He tossed my mask carelessly aside and removed his own, his overly whitened teeth glinting frighteningly. Where was Neal? I thought he'd have come looking for me by now. I just laughed nervously at the compliment and fiddled with the skirt of my dress. I quickly swallowed down the rest of the vodka and tried to ignore his eyes on me. Where the hell is Neal?

"I, uhm, should probably go find my husband. Excuse me," I tried to walk away, but he grabbed my arm and held it tightly.

"Why don't I accompany you? It would be rude to leave a lovely lady such as yourself wandering around my party on her own. Besides, I promised him I would show him the art he was interested in after midnight. It's after midnight, so it seems we both need to be searching for the elusive Mr. Halden." He was hurting my arm and frankly he was scaring me, so I just nodded and let him pull me away into the crowd of people. "You know Kristina," he said to me as though we were old friends, "you are rather thin. Beautiful as you are, it's not very healthy. He needs to take better care of you."

"It's not Nick's fault," I replied quickly and defensively. Santoro glanced at me with amusement and gave me a look indicating he wanted elaboration. "I, uhm, had really bad PPD after I had Karina. Just recently started getting over it. I lost a lot of weight throughout the depression and just haven't been able to gain it back yet," I lied quickly. To my relief I saw Neal weaving through people and heading in our direction. "Nick," I called out to him. Once he noticed where exactly I was standing he grinned at me. "Get over here," I added through gritted teeth.

"Hey, sorry honey, I didn't see which direction you went when you slipped off," he apologized and kissed me. Santoro finally released his iron grip on my arm. I couldn't tell by looking since I had the gloves on, but I was almost positive my arm would be bruised later.

"Oh, it's alright," I gave a forced grin and stood on his other side, getting as close to him as I could while also putting more space between our ever-so-creepy host and myself.

"So, shall we go take a look at those paintings I was asking about? Honey, you can wait here for me," Neal asked Santoro then turned his attention to me.

"Okay," I smiled at him, thankful I could get away from that guy.

"No, no, no," Santoro objected and waved away what Neal had said. "Mrs. Halden . . . Kristina, I insist you join us. They will be going in your house after all." My grin faltered but he either didn't notice or didn't care and started walking towards the staircase towards the back of the room. Neal shot me an apologetic look before grabbing my hand in his and following after him.

There were a few other people loitering upstairs as Santoro led us through the halls to a room that required a combination entered on a keypad to be opened. When he entered the code so that Neal couldn't see what it was, but I did see it. 1428. Like the house in a _Nightmare on Elm Street_, I told myself so I would remember it later, just in case I needed to. Neal began looking at the paintings, which were by some artist I was unfamiliar with but by the way he and Santoro discussed him I figured he was a big deal and I was just artistically ignorant enough to not have heard of him. From behind him, standing with Santoro, it looked as if he was just giving them a good look over like if he were buying furniture or something. But when I moved to stand next to him after Santoro again successfully creeped me out, I could tell by the look on his face he was looking over every detail. When he found what I assumed he was looking for he got a satisfied smirk on his face and moved on to the next one.

After we looked over all of the paintings Santoro led us back into the hallway and began talking to Neal about prices. Neal interrupted, "I'm sorry, give me one second." He pulled my phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Honey, I just remembered, the babysitter called earlier because Karina wasn't feeling well. Can you call her back and tell her we'll be home in about an hour?"

"Sure," I tried to look and sound worried as any mother would after finding out her one year old was feeling ill and walked a ways down the hall. I noticed when I looked down at the screed that he had hit speed dial number two when he handed me the phone, which was programmed to call Peter. I pressed send and put the phone to my ear and waited for him to pick up.

I only had to wait for half a ring before he answered, "Annabelle, did he get to see the painting?"

Aware that Santoro could probably still hear me, I replied, "Yeah, I know. Nick told me she wasn't feeling well. But we're going to leave here and head home soon. We got done what we needed to do here." I figured Peter was smart enough to catch my hint.

"Perfect," Peter sounded almost giddy. They must have been on this guy for a while. "I know you can't say anything where you are right now, but can you try to get outside? I need to know where the paintings are. I'm in the van across the street." With that he hung up.

I returned to where Neal and Santoro were standing. "Honey, I'm getting a bit of a headache, probably just too much to drink. I'm gonna go outside for a minute, get some air," I told Neal and kissed him quickly.

"Do you need me to come with you?"

"No, I'll only be a minute," I flashed him a quick smile.

"We'll probably be heading back downstairs, Kristina," Santoro told me, "look for us down there." I just nodded once and headed back down the stairs.

I waved awkwardly at the man still standing guard at the front door and muttered something about taking a quick walk. I started up the block and took my gloves off, one because I was curious to see if there was a bruise from the guy grabbing me—there was, a big hand shaped one that wrapped around my forearm and spanned almost the whole width—and it was a hot night and the gloves were not helpful in that respect. If my short, bitten fingernails with chipped black nail polish bothered the stuck up rich people at the party they would just have to suck it up and be glad I got this dressed up period. I held the gloves in my fist and casually crossed the street. When I walked past the van, which in the dark was just out of the sight range of the guy at the door, the doors swung open and Peter stuck his head out, waving for me to get in.

"What is this nonsense? There's no candy in this van!" I commented sarcastically. He and the other agents—Jones and Cruz—did not look all that amused. "Okay, he's keeping them on the second floor. There's a keypad on the door to unlock it, the combination is 1428."

"Alright, we'll go in once the party starts to clear out a little. The less people are there to pose as a distraction the better. But we can't wait too long, or he'll probably disappear out the back," Peter said to Jones and Lauren.

"I get the feeling he's done that before," I stated with my eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, he's almost as good as Neal was."

"But far more creepy," I told him with my nose wrinkled.

"What?"

"Don't ask. Hold these for me, would ya?" I tossed the gloves at him. "I'm gonna head back before people start thinkin' something's up." I waved at the three of them and hopped out of the van, stumbled slightly, then headed back on my walk. I walked around the block once more to avoid the guard guy getting suspicious before heading back in.

"Feel better, I hope," Santoro said as I tracked the men down in the crowd of people. I just nodded and smiled and once again found a home in Neal's side.

"What happened to your arm?" Neal asked and gingerly touched the bruise.

"I'm not sure, I probably just ran into something and didn't realize it," I lied but glanced at Santoro quickly, making sure Neal got the message. I felt him tense again and just wrapped both my arms around him and tucked my head under his chin. He pulled me in tighter and forced out more conversation with Santoro that I didn't really pay any attention to.

"Excuse me," came a voice that I could have sworn I had heard before and a hand tapped my shoulder. Neal and I unwillingly released each other and I looked up. "Aren't you my son's teacher?"

I gave Neal a panicked look, and he attempted to cover for me. "No, you must have my wife confused with someone else. She works from home."

"No, you're Annabelle Burke. You teach my son's European history class. I met you at back to school night," she insisted and waved Neal off.

"What do you mean? This is Kristina Halden," Santoro tried to tell her, but I could tell he was starting to get doubtful. While he was focusing on the mother, who I had in fact met before, Neal just gave me a look that said 'go with it.'

"This woman is right, Mr. Santoro, her name isn't Kristina Halden, and my name isn't Nick Halden. She's the sister of FBI agent Peter Burke, who is sitting right outside. And I am Neal Caffrey. Her brother arrested me . . . both times. Now I'm a consultant to the FBI so they can catch criminals like me, i.e. you. We're here to get evidence against you so they can arrest you before you leave the city tomorrow. Any questions?" At first I was alarmed then I noticed he had my phone in his hand. If I knew Neal, he probably dialed Peter while the guy was distracted and now they were all listening in on this little conversation. God, I hope that's what he did.

"Yes, actually," Santoro looked enraged but he still managed a smirk, "What is more important to you, and big brother Peter? Catching me, or the girl?" I looked at him in confusion before he grabbed me and held me tightly with one arm, pinning my arms to my sides, with his other arm he pulled a gun out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket and held it to the side of my head. "You can let me go, with her, and she'll stay perfectly alive as my wife. Or I kill her now and leave anyway."

"Let her go, Santoro," Peter ordered, coming up behind Neal with his own gun drawn. "My men are going upstairs as we speak and opening up your vault. They'll get those paintings and then it's over for you. They'll just be added to the pile of evidence we already have against you."

I whimpered as Santoro cocked the gun and pushed it closer against my temple. I looked desperately between Neal and Peter.

"I will shoot you; drop your weapon and let my sister go," Peter demanded and tightened his grip on his gun.

I locked eyes with Neal for a moment. Santoro must have noticed because he moved the gun from my head and pointed it at Neal's chest. "Don't you get any ideas. She's mine now, not yours."

I felt him tighten around me, I would no doubt have even more bruises, and I knew he was going to shoot Neal. "Peter, just shoot him!" I cried out.

Peter did what I said and hit him in his upper arm. Some blood got on my arms, chest, and dress, but I barely had time to notice before Santoro let me go and pushed me to the side and I landed right on a glass table and fell through. I felt the glass shards tearing into my side, back, and right arm but I was too much in shock to cry out. Neal was at my side in a second and picked me up out of the mess and carried me a few feet away to sit me on top of the bar. I glanced back at what used to be a table. It looked almost like a murder scene. Was I really bleeding that much? There was a spot on the frame of the table right around where I had gone through with blood on it. I couldn't remember hitting my head going through, but maybe I had. Peter put cuffs on Santoro and handed him off to another agent. He spoke to a few other agents about something but I couldn't hear what he was saying.

I turned my attention back to Neal. He pulled off part of my dress so that it was now knee length and then tore that into smaller pieces. He started tying them around the worst of the cuts, and pushed wads of cloth against the ones that he couldn't wrap. "Hold that on there and press down as hard as you can," he told me and placed my hand over a wad of cloth—which was already soaked through—that was covering a gash on my shoulder. He did the same for one on my upper back. I assumed he was just treating the worst ones because I could feel other cuts still bleeding. The adrenaline was still flowing through my system and the pain hadn't even hit me yet.

"Neal," I said. I sounded dazed, almost like someone half asleep. "I'm sorry I'm bleeding on you."

"Don't worry about it, that's not important," he told me with a forced grin.

"I love you," I told him and leaned down to press my lips to his.

"Annabelle," Peter said from right next to us. He was pissed. I jumped away from Neal and looked at him in horror. "We'll talk about that later," he told me through closed teeth.

Neal distracted my very unhappy brother by shrugging off his jacket and tossing it to him before going back to pushing down on the cut on my back. "Tear that up and use it to cover the ones I missed."

"That's your favorite suit," I pointed out and furrowed my brow in confusion.

"Yeah, well your survival is more important to me," he replied dryly. "Keep the pressure on that," he pointed to my shoulder then placed his hand over mine and pressed down. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and I had begun to feel tired. Both Peter and Neal rode along. I fell asleep within the five minutes it took to reach the hospital.

I didn't wake up until the next afternoon and both Peter and Neal were there in the same bloodied clothes from last night while I was stuck in the stupid, itchy, and embarrassingly backless hospital gown. Elle was also there, looking worried as hell. They all looked that way.

"Hey," I croaked awkwardly. I went to move but then flinched. My head was killing me and I could feel the cuts along my back, right side, and right arm all throbbing.

Elle, who was naturally the most emotional out of all of us, came and hugged me tightly. I ignored the pain in areas where I'm sure I had who knows how many stitches and hugged her back with my left arm.

"I'm okay, Lizzy," I reassured her softly and rubbed my hand over her back.

"I know," she sniffed. "But if you ever scare me like this again I am going to kill you," she threatened with half a laugh.

"I'm sorry," I replied sheepishly.

She noticed Peter staring me down and excused herself, making something up about cravings and a compressed bladder and she dragged Neal with her. I was alone with a brother on the warpath.

"So, would you like to tell me what happened yesterday?" He asked his voice hard as he glared at me.

"What do you think happened," I replied like I used to when we were younger.

"You told Neal you loved him and then you kissed him."

"Then why did you have to ask?"

"Annabelle," he was about to start yelling but remembered where he was and held it back. "Why did you do that? Please tell me it's just because you hit your head and were delirious."

"Why would it be so bad if I was with him?"

"He's a criminal, Annabelle! I spent three years of my life chasing after him, in case you forgot!"

"Yes, I know that, Peter. But now, not only has he helped you on multiple cases and increased your conviction rate to over 93%, but he's your _friend_. You said so yourself." I crossed my arms over my chest and sent him a glare of my own.

"You're going to get hurt, Anna. You know as well as I do how much he loved Kate. That won't just disappear," his voice softened and he sat on the edge of the bed.

"I know he still loves her, Peter. I already talked about this with him. But Peter, it's possible to love more than one person. And I'm not exactly baggage free when it comes to the emotions department. The only difference is he lost his girlfriend and he's not medicated."

"That's exactly what I mean, Anna. You've been through enough, and I'm not going to sit back and watch you go through even more. It's bad enough I let this happen," he gestured to all the damage that wasn't hidden by the hospital gown.

"You didn't _let_ anything happen. You can't control everything Peter. And you're going to have to let me make my own decisions. I'm a big girl. If I get hurt, it's my own damn fault."

"Fine," he huffed, "I'll let you give this a shot. But if he hurts you I'm putting him back in prison."

"Gee, Dad, can I stay up past my bedtime too?" I asked sarcastically, but grinned to let him know I was just teasing him.

He rolled his eyes and gave me a one armed hug, avoiding my right side. "I love you, Anna."

"I love you too, Peter. But if you call me Anna one more time, you won't be able to have anymore children naturally." He winced at the threat and nodded in understanding.

"Is it safe?" Neal asked and stuck his head in the room.

"Yes it's safe. I'm not killing either of you today," Peter grumbled. He still wasn't very happy, but I guess keeping us both alive is the least I can ask for at this point. He stood from the bed and headed to stand in front of Neal. "You make he cry even once, and you're back in prison," he threatened him before leaving us alone.

"Hmm . . . he took that better than I thought he would," Neal said thoughtfully and grinned at me before stealing Peter's previous spot.

"Yeah, at first when I saw the look on his face I doubted my survival. But he took it surprisingly well," I agreed with a chuckle. "So what exactly is the total damage? To me, I mean."

"Between the six really bad lacerations, you have twenty eight stitches and you have a pretty good bump on your head but thankfully no concussion. And," he smirked at me, "I worked my magic on the doctor and you have all next week off work."

"Thank you," I grinned widely and pulled him to me so I could kiss him. "I so did not feel like giving that test! Let a sub do it, haha. I'll still have to grade shit, but at least I won't have to deal with all the obnoxious kids."

"If it's that bad why don't you do something else?" He laughed at my observation.

"It's not all bad. I like working with the kids that actually care and I get to teach them the things that I really liked learning about. It's just the ones that don't care that bother me. It's like this obviously isn't important to you at all and you'd rather be somewhere else, so why don't you just go their and stop wasting both my time and yours." He kept looking at me with an amused glint in his eye. "Not a word," I added quickly, knowing he was thinking to the writing.

He just laughed at me again and then picked up a bag sitting by the chair he had been sitting in when I woke up. "Elle came to your rescue again."

"Yay!" I exclaimed excitedly. Hospital gowns are one of the top three worst things I've ever been forced to wear, and I was extremely thankful to have a sister in law that knows how I feel about that and brings me clothes. Then I vaguely remembered where some of my cuts, or stab wounds rather, were located and blushed. "I'll probably need help."

"I think we'll be fine," he smirked at me. "I have seen you naked once or twice before." I just rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him before allowing him to help me change. I was discharged half an hour later wearing my favorite Ramones tee, black gym shorts, and my old converses. I have no idea what happened to the dress from last night, but Elle said she dropped the shoes of at my apartment. There were more clothes in the bag because they all ganged up on me and insisted I either stay with Peter and Elle or at June's so that I had someone to help me take care of the cuts I couldn't reach on my back. I ended up choosing to stay with Neal, namely because I didn't want to sleep on a couch, or force Peter to do so.

"Maybe you should just move in, you always seem to end up staying here anyway," Neal joked later that night as we lay in bed attempting to fall asleep.

"I think Peter might snap and go crazy if I did . . . maybe I should, that sounds like it'd be a funny thing to see," I laughed and kissed him again.

* * *

**So this has been the longest chapter as of yet and I hope it makes up for my extended absence. I can't even verbalize how amazing it is to see the response from you guys. I swear I have the best readers on this whole website. Anyway, I really loved writing this chapter, especially the masquerade and I hope you all liked reading it.**

**Until next time,**

**TheRatPack**


	7. Call Me Irresponsible

**Chapter Seven: Call Me Irresponsible**

_Call me unpredictable - tell me I'm impractical  
Rainbows I'm inclined to pursue  
Call me irresponsible - yes I'm unreliable  
But it's undeniably true - I'm irresponsibly mad for you_

_~Frank Sinatra, "Call Me Irresponsible"_

For the time I was staying at Neal's, more than half of my day was spent in bed. Elle either didn't know I was medicated, Peter had never told her I'm assuming if that is the case, and didn't pack my pills for me or she had simply forgotten to grab them. That combined with what had happened sent me into one of my worst depressions as of yet, excluding how I had been after Grandma and Maya. For two weeks I wore nothing but pajamas and didn't even brush my hair. All I did appearance wise was brush my teeth and shower. The second week I was there I was supposed to be back at work for the last three days of school. I cashed in my built up sick days. I thought about going home one day while Neal was gone just to grab them, but decided not to. My weight once again dropped as it had after the medication change in New Orleans. All I wanted to do was sleep.

Neal was depressed too. So, once he returned home, I put on my happy mask. He didn't think I noticed, but I did. He wanted Kate back. As soon as he thought I was focusing on something other than him, his eyes would begin to water, his breathing would increase, he would start getting shaky. Whenever Mozzie came over they sat at the table discussing theories regarding who could have caused the plane to blow up and why. As I had figured, the most discussed was Fowler. Occasionally, Mozzie would distract him with the case Neal was currently working with Peter—a bank robber calling himself the Architect, and then later on some under cover thing he was doing regarding Jennings and a park that may or may not exist. It would work for a little while, but Neal would go right back to Kate the next day.

I must have been better at acting than he was. No one stopped once to ask if I was alright. Not even Elle or Caroline when they made visits during the days. They told me I was strong and brave for handling it so well. In reality, I wasn't handling it at all. But I heard other people, and even I did a few times, stop in the middle of a conversation with Neal to make sure he was okay multiple times. There were times when I felt almost jealous that no one cared to check on me, but then I felt like such a bitch and made myself even more upset.

On the Saturday marking two weeks after the party, I finally left the house. June looked surprised to see me walking downstairs in a tank top, gym shorts, and flip flops but I just smiled and told her I'd be back in a while. I didn't know why I decided to make this trip, but I almost felt like I had to. It took me ten minutes to get to my destination. The cemetery was a ghost town—excuse the pun—compared to the hundreds of busy people roaming the city streets on the other side of the gate. The graveyard was empty excluding me and all of the dead under my feet. That was good. The last thing I needed was people there to watch what was sure to become a full on mental breakdown. I roamed around for a while, not sure exactly where the person I had in mind was located. Then I found her.

Kate Moreau was buried right beside her father. "Hi Kate," I addressed the headstone awkwardly and sat in front of it with my legs crossed. "I'm not sure exactly why I wanted to talk to you. I just—I'm worried about Neal. He's not himself, Kate. Losing you, god, losing you has changed him. I love Neal. I do. I love him regardless of the fact that he will always want you just that much more. I'm fine with being on the backburner. I've been on everyone's backburner my whole life, I'm used to it. But I'm not fine with Neal getting so low. I want to see him happy. I've never seen him happy, really happy, for as long as I've known him. You were the only person that could've made him feel that way. Now, you're gone and I don't know how to help him. I want to fix it so bad, but I can't. I can't even fix myself, let alone him. I'm not strong enough for this." I began to sob and the tears burned the cut on my chest as they dripped onto it after running down my face. "I'm scared for him, Kate. I'm scared to death. And as selfish as it sounds, I'm mad. I'm mad that I can't be good enough. I've never been good enough for anyone, and the one I've fallen so hard for is the one that I least deserve. He could do a thousand times better than me. And that just makes me so mad, and sad, and scared, and I just don't know what to do." I couldn't talk anymore and just brought my knees to my chest, wrapped my arms around my legs ignoring the pain brought on as my stitches got pulled on as my skin shifted, and leaned my forehead on my knees and continued to sob.

When I left June's I had intended to also visit Grandma and Maya after Kate. But even forcing myself to stand after thirty minutes was too much of an effort for my tired mind. Instead I trudged back to June's, feeling worse than before rather than better. I just kicked off my flip flops and burrowed as deep into the covers as I could.

"Belle," I heard Neal calling me hours later. I could tell by the amount of light now filtering through the blanket, or lack thereof, and sheets that it had gotten dark. He flipped the light on and called for me again. I wanted to put the happy mask on, I really did, but I couldn't. Whenever I tried I just felt ready to start bawling all over again.

I tensed when I heard him approaching the bed. "Belle, what's wrong?" he asked softly and sat next to where I was curled up after pulling away the covers.

"I'm just having a bad day right now. I'll be fine tomorrow." I felt like I was going to burst into tears again but my voice sounded completely blank.

"What happened?" He wrapped his hand around my unscathed arm and pulled me into a sitting position on his lap as though I were a child's rag doll as opposed to a person.

I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. "It's nothing. I'm fine. I'll be back to normal tomorrow."

"Did I do something?"

"No, Neal, it's not you. The way I am is my fault," I told him, partially lying.

"Is this about Kate?"

"No," I lied again. I felt him staring at me. He was right, it's impossible to lie to him. "I'm sorry," I sighed finally and opened my eyes. He kept staring at me to go on. "I just . . . I'm tired of feeling like I'm not good enough for anybody. You're the one I want to be with, there's no doubting that, but if there's anyone I don't deserve at all it's you."

"Who ever told you that you weren't good enough?" He tightened his arms around me and made me lock eyes with him.

"No one had to Neal," I groaned. "If I was then I'd be able to fix everything. But you still are having a hard time with it and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Belle, you are helping. No one could ever make it completely go away. I told you before that I still love Kate. But I also told you I love you more. If I didn't have you now, I'd probably still be in bed like I was right after she died."

"How is it you always know what to say, even when I'm a bumbling idiot?" I let out a small chuckle.

"Because it balances us out," he joked. "Now you wouldn't let me stay in bed and do nothing, and I'm not going to let you. Change your clothes and brush your hair. We're going out." He stood and then sat me on my feet.

I smirked, shook my head and sat back on the bed and pulled him to me by his tie. "Nope. If I remember correctly, first I got in bed and laid there with you before forcing you to shower."

"So you want me to do the same thing you did?"

"With some minor alterations to be discussed in my office," I told him as if making a business deal and then kissed him quickly before letting go of his tie.

"And where exactly is your office?" He smirked knowing where I was going with this. I scooted back up to my side of the bed and then patted the spot next to me.

"If only my brother knew how much you've corrupted me," I teased after he kissed me deeply and removed my tank top.

Neal laughed at me and kissed me again as I began undoing the buttons on his shirt. "He had his chance to kill me and didn't take it. Anything I have done and will do after that is his fault for not taking said chance and preventing me from doing it."

"I like that thought process," I giggled as he kissed down my neck.

We didn't end up going out until the next day, which he had off. I went into my doctor's at noon to have my stitches taken out and then from there we went to lunch.

My mind drifted back to my medications and as we left the small café where we had eaten I stopped him and gestured in the direction one would take to get to Queens. "Um, can we take a detour? I need something from my apartment, Elle forgot to pack it."

"My radius," he reminded me and pulled up his pants leg just enough so I could see the tracking anklet.

"Just get in the cab," I rolled my eyes at him after getting one to stop for us. He gave me a weird look but got in the back of the cab anyway. I pulled out my cell and dialed Peter.

"Hey," he answered sounding preoccupied. I heard a toilet flush in the background and Elle hiccupping. Morning sickness I would venture to guess.

"Hey, I know you're probably busy, but I just wanted to let you know Neal will be out of his radius for a little bit. I need to go pick up something from my apartment and he's coming with me."

I figured Peter would normally argue, but that's part of why I love Elle so much because as long as he was occupied with keeping her happy, he couldn't stop me from doing what I wanted. Wow, I do sound a lot like Neal.

"Yeah, fine," Peter huffed. I heard him curse to himself as Elle got sick again. "I've gotta go. Just make sure he doesn't leave your side."

"God, Peter, stop surfing porn and go help your wife," I teased before hanging up on him. I just laughed at the look Neal gave me and kissed him on the cheek.

"I think this is the first time I've actually come inside your apartment. It's nice," Neal commented when I led him inside.

"Thanks," I grinned weakly. I honestly considered my apartment kind of crappy, but I guess he is entitled to his own opinion. "You can go on and sit down if you want. I just need to grab some things from my bathroom."

"Okay," he shrugged and sat on my couch, looking like a classic masterpiece shoved into a run down shack.

I repositioned my giant purse on my shoulder and escaped to my bathroom. I immediately grabbed my two pill bottles from my medicine cabinet and tossed them into the bag. Thankfully I had learned back with my boyfriend before Neal to carry my birth control pills with me, so that hadn't been a problem. I was about to return to the living room when I remembered what was supposed to start in a few days and then back tracked to grab the box of tampons from under my sink. My bag was, surprisingly, almost full, but thankfully there was still enough room for me to close the snap so that Neal couldn't spot the item on top. It was bad enough that there would be the risk of seeing the evidence in the trashcan later; I didn't want to announce it.

"Ready?" I asked him as I returned.

"Yeah," he smiled at me, making my heart flutter slightly. I wondered vaguely as we left whenever I would return to sleeping in my own apartment. It strangely hurt when I thought of having to sleep alone again, so I grabbed Neal's hand and pushed the thoughts to the cage in the back of my mind along with other things that were to painful to bring up. Strange that for having only two boyfriends in my life, sleeping alone bothers me. I should be used to it. For a while I was used to it, at least I was before Neal came along.

* * *

**As usual, I have to thank all of you. You guys have just been so awesome since this story began and I am so grateful to all of you for that. I would also like to apologize for the fact that this chapter is shorter than I originally intended. But I didn't want to leave you with nothing before I went away for another week. I have another house sitting job and I am leaving tomorrow and I will be gone until the eighth. But the good news is, I am working on a special one shot for all of you. It is a spin off of this and is Peter/Elle centric. It takes place when Elle tells Peter she is pregnant. I am going to try to post it tonight-it will be titled Date Night-and if not, it will be up first thing when I get back.**

**Anyways, I'm sorry I am telling you this on such short notice and I hope this at least partially makes up for it. And to make sure I don't do it again, I will tell you now that I am going to be on vacation from the twenty first to the twenty eighth of August. Anyways, I can't wait to see what you all have to say when I get back and I will get to chapter eight as soon as I can.**

**I love you guys!**

**TheRatPack**


	8. Innamorata

**Chapter Eight: Innamorata**

_If our lips should meet Innamorata  
Kiss me kiss me sweet Innamorata  
Hold me close and say you're mine_

_~Dean Martin, "Innamorata"_

I stayed at Neal's for another week before finally going home. I didn't really want to leave; both of us were perfectly happy under one roof. But we talked about it and agreed it was too soon in the relationship for us to be permanently living together.

Caroline and Lena were excited to have me back in Queens. The night I came home they invited me over for dinner and a movie night, which I agreed to. I love Neal more than anything but I missed my girl nights.

"Aunt Annabelle, come look at my room," Lena said excitedly and jumped into my arms as soon as I entered the apartment. "I got a big girl bed!"

"What? No way! That is so cool," I gasped excitedly and kissed her on the cheek as we walked back to her bedroom, which was almost completely purple. "Miss Lena, I love all the purple in this room. I swear you are a woman after my own heart. And that has to be the coolest big girl bed I have ever seen."

"Can we watch the SpongeBob movie?" she asked and wriggled from my grasp to hold my hand and drag me out to the living room where Caroline was waiting for us.

"Oh sure we can," I grinned at her. That was how our movie nights always started. We would watch either _SpongeBob_ or _the_ _Princess Bride_ with Lena, she would fall asleep halfway through, Caroline would put her in bed and then we'd watch our movies and order Chinese take out.

SpongeBob and Patrick had just made it to Shell City when Caroline and I heard Lena begin to snore softly. Caroline smiled at me and scooped up the almost-three year old and headed back to put her to bed. While she was gone I took out the DVD and returned it to its case and stuck in _the Hangover_.

"This has to be the most quotable movie ever," Caroline giggled as Zach Galifianakis made his oh-so-famous wolf pack speech.

"Tell me about it! Disregarding the Rat Pack films, this is my favorite movie," I replied.

"You know how obsessed you are with them, right? It's almost an addiction," she teased.

"It is not. I can stop anytime I want," I said in mock seriousness and threw some twitching in for good measure before we both burst out laughing. The good thing about Lena, once she was out not even a bomb could wake her up so we didn't have to worry too much about being quiet.

"So, how are things with lover boy? They can't be too bad if you basically moved in for the better half of June."

"Awesome," I let a goofy smile wander onto my face, choosing to ignore the first two weeks I was there. Last week was great, so that is what I would focus on. Three cheers for selective memory!

"Oh, honey, do tell. I haven't been on a date in years, I need to live vicariously through you," she joked and leaned in waiting for me to tell all, which I did. "Tell me he has a brother," was all she had to say by the time I was done.

"Sorry, doll, not that I know of," I shrugged and giggled slightly.

"So how is Elle handling being pregnant?" she asked the movie now forgotten as it continued to play.

"She's had some really bad morning sickness but it's been easing up a bit. I went baby shopping with her the other day. Peter told me I wasn't allowed to anymore though," I laughed.

"Why?"

"Because it made me want one," I admitted sheepishly.

"You would," she teased and pushed my shoulder playfully.

"Shut up," I muttered but couldn't help but grin slightly and turned back to the screen.

I returned to my apartment at around one in the morning and then tossed and turned for two hours before I fell asleep. Sleeping alone just didn't feel right anymore. Scratch that, it didn't just feel wrong. It completely sucked, big time!

The next day I spent working at my new summer job. Since I didn't teach during the summer, I needed some type of income so I had applied at a few places last week and got hired as a bartender/waitress (I could do either one, depending on what they need me to do on any given night) at a bar in downtown Manhattan. Not the ideal job, but it paid well enough to make the bills and bartenders make out pretty well in the tip department. I interviewed on Wednesday and got a call the next day saying I had gotten the position. It was probably because I had been in a similar part time job back in New Orleans and he wouldn't have to waste time training me.

I showered and got ready at about eleven after lying around for almost two hours and watching I Love Lucy reruns. I didn't have to leave until about three, but I felt gross and couldn't sit still so I figured it was something productive to do with my time.

After a long, hot, relaxing shower I walked around my apartment in my navy and gray striped robe for an hour and let my hair air dry as I continued watching the Lucy marathon. Once it was mostly dry, only the bottom layer was still a tad damp, I returned to my bathroom and turned on my straightener. After it finished heating up I straightened my hair layer by layer until it hung flat to my mid-back and then applied a small amount of make up—just foundation and mascara with a clear lip gloss.

I changed into a slim fit Batman t-shirt—I may or may not be an extreme Batman nerd, it all depends on how you look at it; Peter calls it obsession, I call it an intense interest—and some dark blue jean shorts and tugged on my ancient converses. I really should get a new pair, I had owned these since I stopped growing and they were dirty, torn, and cracked in multiple spots. But I was attached. They had been the only shoes I really wore—with some rare exceptions—for over ten years. That's a long time for one pair of shoes to last and I couldn't bear to replace them until they literally fell apart. Although, by the looks of them, that would be fairly soon.

I was ready two and a half hours before I needed to be and was still very fidgety. I had a ton of extra energy and felt the need to do something productive. As I sat on my couch eating my lunch—left over Chinese take out from my movie night with Caroline—my eyes drifted from Lucy and Ethel to where my laptop sat on my side table. I hadn't written in weeks and it hit me that it was the perfect thing to concentrate on. I powered up the laptop and signed in as I finished off my fried rice, my leg shaking in anticipation as I opened up Microsoft word and then pulled up a document I had started almost a month ago.

I was right about it being the perfect outlet. As soon as my fingers started going at the keys, the words started flowing automatically. Writing had always been a natural thing for me and going weeks without it was something I always regretted. I missed the time when I could do this every day. If I ever actually finish this story, I told myself as I typed, I need to do what Neal suggested and send it into publishers. I love my students and teaching is a great gig, but writing has always been what I was meant to pursue. I could feel it as I worked through the two plus hours before I had to work.

I felt slightly disappointed when I had to save and close the story, which was quickly becoming a book and currently standing at fifty pages in length, but I promised myself I would continue work on it the next day. I shoved my sweater in my bag—according to Scott Cook, one of the other teachers at my school who also had a part time job at the bar, our boss was notorious for cranking the air conditioning unnecessarily high—and stuck my recently charged phone in my pocket before leaving my apartment. As soon as I got on the subway I pulled out my iPod and stuck the buds in my ears. I scrolled through the artists before settling on HIM, my favorite after Frankie, Dean, and Sammy. I'm not sure how it ended up being my favorite after those three. It was quite a jump from swing/jazz music to a love metal band from Finland. But at least I can say I have diverse taste. I tapped my fingers along to the beat as I listened to the songs off of _Screamworks: Love in Theory and in Practice_, their latest album. My favorites were Heartkiller and Like St. Valentine. From the band as a whole, my favorites were Right Here in My Arms and Heartkiller.

As I reached my stop I shoved the device back in my purse, not bothering to wrap up my head phones. They got tangled either way so I didn't really see the point. The pub was only a five minute walk from the subway station and I felt that need to be productive again. Thankfully the bar was almost always fairly busy, so I would have plenty to focus on. I shivered as I walked in, Scotty Cook was right; it was definitely cold in there. I walked to the back room and looked at the schedule. I was on bar duty tonight until we closed at two in the morning. Score for getting full time hours at a part time job. I may be tired the next day, but at least I'll get good money out of it.

I shrugged into my navy blue cardigan and signed in before pinning my nametag to my shirt and heading back out and stepping behind the bar just in time for my shift to begin. Scott arrived a few moments later—he was scheduled for waiter duty today. "Hey Scotty Cook," I greeted him when he came back out with his own nametag in place.

"Hey Burke," he grinned at me and hugged me across the bar before going to tend to a table of impatient looking men. I don't know what their issue was; they hadn't even been sitting there three minutes yet.

There was a small smattering of people seated at the tables, but the bar was currently empty. But I knew that would change within the hour. And I was absolutely right. By four thirty the bar was almost completely full of people as well as all of the tables. I was busy enough that I didn't notice the familiar faces taking the two remaining bar stools until one of them called me by name.

"Hey, Burke," I heard the feminine yet tough voice call me.

"Diana? Hey! Hi Christy," I approached the couple and stretched across the bar to hug them both. Christy had gone to the same college as me for two semesters and we got really close while she was there. I was one of the first people she came out to. "What are you two doing here?"

"I was in the mood for bar food," Christy started.

"And when Peter told me where your new job was I couldn't resist coming in to see you," Diana finished.

"Peter didn't send you to check up on me did he?" I asked jokingly.

"No, he didn't send me." She paused a moment and gestured to the table closest to the bar. "He sent Jones and Cruz."

"Wow. I was just kidding," I replied, half way shocked. I knew he was protective, but really? "Hey, Scott," I called out to him as he walked by.

"Yeah," he answered and got as close to the bar he could with out invading peoples' space.

"Would you please tell that lovely couple over there that I appreciate the gesture, but they really don't need to do my brother's dirty work? If he is so worried about me, he can come down here and check on me himself."

"Got it, boss," he laughed and went to run the errand for me.

"God, does he have people watch me when I'm with Neal too?" Diana opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off. "On second thought, don't answer that. I really don't think I want to know. So what do you guys want to drink?"

Christy and Diana stayed for about an hour before saying something about catching a movie and they left after a quick goodbye. Jones and Cruz had left about ten minutes before them. I tried to avoid rolling my eyes when Peter came in. But, luckily for me, Neal was following a few feet behind him.

"Gee, Peter whatever could you be doing here?" I asked sarcastically and glared at him. "Hey babe," I grinned at Neal and leaned over the bar so I could hug and kiss him.

"We're just stopping by," my brother answered too innocently.

"Uh-huh. I supposed that Jones and Cruz just happened to stop by as well. And they just happened to leave only fifteen minutes before you got here." I raised my eyebrows at him and put my hands on my hips. "Peter, I appreciate that you worry about me, but I'm fine. I can take care of myself." I moved my right arm behind my back when I noticed him eyeing up one of the half-healed cuts as if to say 'really?'

I went down the bar to refill a man's beer and when I returned to my brother and boyfriend, I asked, "So do you actually want a drink, or are you just making sure I don't accidentally kill myself?" They both ordered, Peter a beer and Neal vodka after I told him there was no decent wine, and then Peter mumbled something about calling to check on Elle.

"So how's the new job?" Neal asked once Peter walked away.

"Not to bad. I've been here only about two-ish hours and I already have forty dollars in tips. That's the good thing about working here, there will almost always be at least on drunk rich guy at any given time that gives really good tips," I laughed as I wiped up where someone had spilled. It didn't appear as though anyone else currently need a refill so I leaned on the counter in front of Neal and kissed him again. "So guess what," I grinned at him.

"What?" he asked and grabbed my hand.

"I started writing earlier," I told him and smiled even wider. He smiled back and held my hand an top of the bar.

"Good. Now when will you let me read some of it?" Last week the subject of my writing had come up again and he asked to see some of it. I told him I didn't want anyone reading it. It probably wasn't all that good and I didn't want to embarrass myself.

"Maybe when it's done," I told him hesitantly. I still didn't really want him to, but if I couldn't let my own boyfriend read it, how would I ever convince myself to send it to a publisher? He looked at me with his eyebrows raised. He knew I was just trying to buy some time and hoping he'd forget. "Fine," I sighed and gave in under his stare. "I'll bring my laptop next time I come over. You know, you're lucky you're cute or you'd be really annoying," I teased him.

"I guess I'm just lucky," he smirked.

"Damn right you are," I laughed and grabbed my water from my purse which was stashed under the bar. "How's Lizzy doing?" I asked when Peter came back over and took a sip of his beer.

"She hasn't gotten sick today, thankfully. We have the twenty-two week appointment tomorrow—"

"Ooh, are you gonna find out if it's a boy or a girl? If you do you have to call me as soon as you find out!" I interrupted.

"Okay, I will," he replied grudgingly. I knew what he was thinking. He knew I'd want to go shopping again, and that it would make me want a baby. He was absolutely right.

"Did you tell Neal that story?" I asked with a smirk.

"What story?" Neal inquired, totally clueless.

"Last time I went shopping with Elle for baby stuff I said it was making me want one and then brother dearest forbid me from ever going baby shopping again," I answered him through a laugh. Peter looked extremely unhappy—probably afraid Neal might agree to reproducing or something, as if we would do that when we weren't even ready to live together—but Neal cracked a wide grin and laughed with me.

"Nice, Belle, real nice," was all he said on the subject before I went to get a new customer's drink order.

* * *

**Alright, so as I told you at the end of chapter seven, I am going to be gone again from the twenty-first until the twenty-eight. But I wanted to give you one more update before that. And then I will warn you updates may be slow since I start school again on the thirtieth-I'm in four AP classes and three honors, so I will have a lot of work to keep up with-but I will try to be as consistent as possible. I'm hoping to update either weekly or bi-weekly. Anyway, I hope you liked this one. I thought it was a nice change from the mostly depressing tone of chapter seven. And to tide you all over until my return, I have also finally posted Date Night, the one shot I wrote about when Elle tells Peter she is pregnant. I also have posted a poll on my profile regarding the fate of Baby Burke. The poll is to determine the baby's name and gender, so it is important to get your vote in before I come back and begin work on chapter nine.**

**I love you guys and I can't wait to hear from you! **

**Until next time,**

**TheRatPack**


	9. Bewitched

**Chapter Nine: Bewitched**

"_Couldn't sleep, wouldn't sleep  
Love came and told me, shouldn't sleep  
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I"_

_~Frank Sinatra, "Bewitched"_

"Babe, babe, babe," I exclaimed as I burst into Neal's apartment, interrupting a conversation with Mozzie.

"What?" he asked, his eyebrows pulled together as my seemingly random hyperactivity confused him.

"Did you hear? I can't believe Peter didn't call you! I'm gonna have a little nephew! I can't wait, Elle and I are going shopping again tomorrow," I gushed excitedly, bouncing in place even as I sat next to him on the couch after setting my laptop case on the coffee table.

"Well," Mozzie began and stood up after finishing off a glass of wine. "As adorable as Sister Suit is when excited, the new arrival is my exit cue."

I frowned and stilled myself. "Mozzie, you don't have to leave because of me. If you guys were busy I can go . . ." I trailed off awkwardly and started to stand.

Mozzie put up a hand as if to dismiss what I said. "Don't take it personally Sister Suit. I simply try to avoid associating with anyone closely related to feds."

"I'll see you later Moz," Neal told him and gave him a slightly warning look.

"He doesn't like me very much," I stated plainly once he was gone.

"Like he said, it's not you; it's the relation to the FBI."

"He still talks to you; you're tied in with the FBI. He doesn't leave every time Peter walks in," I pointed out, but tried not to sound overly offended.

He quickly changed the subject. "So they're having a boy?"

"Yeah," I answered with a grin, but not quite as excited as I had been before. "I'm shopping with Elle tomorrow morning before work, and I'm off Saturday so I'm going over to help Peter set up the nursery."

"What happened to him saying you weren't allowed to go baby shopping anymore?" Neal smirked at me.

"Since when do I listen to a thing my brother says? If I did, I wouldn't be here right now. And," I paused, flashed a smirk of my own and moved so I was straddling him before kissing him deeply. After a few long minutes, I pulled away. "Darling, if I listened to Peter, we wouldn't be able to do this."

"That is an excellent point," he replied and pulled my lips back to his.

After a few more minutes spent on that activity, I pulled back so I could tell him my next bit of good news. "So the school called me earlier, and told me that I am getting my own classroom this year," I grinned widely. Last year, since the school was so overcrowded, I along with some of the other teachers had been what was referred to as "floaters" and we just moved from room to room for each class. But some of the older teachers had retired, so now most of last years floaters were getting classrooms, while this year's new teachers got their turns to float. "Now I don't have to push that stupid cart in the hallways!" Why do I get excited over the smallest things? I'm so weird.

"Good, because when we went to talk to you in May about that case, it was way more difficult than necessary trying to find you," he laughed. "So when does school start again?"

"August 31, but I go back a week earlier to start setting up my classroom. Oh and if you and Peter ever decide to come see me again, I'm in one 114," I answered with a small giggle.

"I'll be sure to remember that."

"Oh wow," I gasped suddenly, a wave of realization hitting me. "In less than a month I'll be getting ready to start school again. And it will have been one year since I moved back here. Then in October, I'm going to be an aunt. I feel so old!"

"Belle," he looked at me like I was being totally ridiculous. "You're only twenty-six, getting old is the last thing you need to be worried about. And I think I should feel offended," he added teasingly, "you're calling yourself old at twenty-six, what does that make me at thirty-two?"

I tried not to laugh over my reply. "That makes you a cradle robbing old man, and me a gold digging whore." After I finished speaking I couldn't help it and burst into a fit of nearly hysterical giggles. It wasn't all that funny, at least I didn't think it was, but I was still excited over my two pieces of news and I had become nervous as soon as I saw my laptop catch his eye. I unconsciously alternated between scratching at my arms and biting my already short nails.

He raised his eyebrows at me and laughed, although not even close to as hysterically as I was. "Are you okay? You didn't forget your anti-psychotics did you?" he teased. I had finally fessed up to him about my medications, and now the running joke when I got overly excited and hyper like this was that I wasn't on strong enough medication.

"Maybe," I replied and fidgeted with the hem of my shirt while making my eyes shift back and forth as if I were guilty of something before laughing again. I calmed down a few moments later and sighed. "Alright, I guess I'll stop stalling . . . I assume you remember our deal," I told him and gestured to the computer.

"I would never forget it," he winked at me and pulled the laptop out of its case and walked over to the dining room table. "What's the password?"

"You're supposed to be the super genius criminal, you figure it out," I grumbled, half joking half out of anxiety.

"Fine," he shrugged, un-phased by the bitter hint in my voice. He had my account open in only about two or three different tries. Either he was better than I expected, or I totally suck at making passwords. "Which file is the one you've been working on lately?"

I held back a groan and shoved off the couch before going over to open it for him. "Have a party," I said sarcastically once the document (which was now well over one hundred pages long) was up and loaded.

"Someone's happy," he answered just as sarcastically. I rolled my eyes and started to walk away but he grabbed my arm and pulled me into his lap. "What's wrong? Is it just this that's making you upset?"

I just shrugged and leaned my head on his shoulder. Because frankly, underneath the bitterness and sarcasm, I was confused too. I mean, I didn't really want him to read it, but I hadn't been mad before, just nervous. I had absolutely no clue as to why I was acting like such a bitch now. "I don't know, babe, I'm sorry. I'm not being fair." I kissed him quickly but deeply. "Go on and get to reading. I have that appointment I told you about earlier. I'll come back after I'm done there okay?"

"Alright, call me when you're on your way," he replied, looking slightly concerned as he walked me to the door. I grinned weakly and kissed him one more time before heading out.

I looked at the clock on my phone, which I had somehow managed to forget to charge again and it only had two bars of battery left, and saw that I would be cutting it close on time. I didn't think I could make it walking, so I moved to hail a cab. After getting passed by three times, and getting two others stolen by some rather rude people with cell phones attached to their ears, I finally got a cab to stop and let me in before anyone else could take it. I told the driver where I was headed and then stared out of the window, trying to hold back the fresh wave of anxiety. While I was with Neal, I was able to distract myself enough that I didn't even really think about where I was going now. I had concentrated enough on what I was doing that him reading the story was all I had been feeling nervous about. But now that was over with and all I had to concentrate on was this impending doctor's appointment.

I knew I was going to a good doctor. I had called the woman I went to in New Orleans and knew that this was the best person in my price range. But I was still just as nervous as if I had never been to one of these before. I had to take a deep breath when I exited the cab before I could go into the building. I probably paid the driver way more then the fare had been, but he wasn't complaining and my hands were shaking too badly to take the time to count it all out.

I started scratching my arm as I walked into the building and headed towards where my former doctor had told me the office was located—she knew how geographically challenged I was, so she told me over the phone instead of leaving me to my own devices. Scratching was one of my many bad habits that showed up when I was really anxious. After Grandma and Maya died, my arms and legs were covered in long jagged scabs because I was scratching so much. I didn't get that anxious when I was on my medication, but that's part of why I was here now. My prescriptions from Dr. Tecsan had run out, and I realized too late that I would have to find a new therapist. So here I am, scratching my arm raw with nails that had been mostly bitten off as I headed towards the office of my new therapist.

"Excuse me," I said nervously, my voice three octaves higher, as I found the door with Dr. Sheffield's name on it and approached the secretary at the front desk. "Uhm, I'm Annabelle Burke. I have an appointment with Dr. Sheffield." I tugged anxiously at the violet cami I was wearing underneath a black button up shirt.

"Ah, Annabelle, right on time," a voice came from a doorway to my right, cutting off the secretary. "Mary, don't bother her with all those forms. Dr. Tecsan already sent me all of her contact and insurance information, along with the change of address. I think I have them on my desk; I'll give them to you to file later. Come on in Annabelle, have a seat, let's talk for a while," he went on energetically and ushered me into the room he had just come from. "So, Annabelle, as you just heard, after you gave her your consent Dr. Tecsan faxed me everything she had in her file on you. I've already looked over most of her notes she had on you. You two made quite a bit of progress working together, but I trust since your move, and having such a large gap between the last time you saw her and now, there is plenty more you have to work through. And she had you on Prozac and Xanax, correct?"

"Yeah, that's part of why I called her and asked who I should start seeing. My prescriptions ran out almost two weeks ago now. I know I should've started seeing someone again sooner, but . . . "

"But what? Why don't we start there, what kept you away from therapy for so long after moving?"

"Well, I guess there are a few reasons." I shifted nervously and plucked at some strings sticking out of a hole in my jeans. "Part of it was I was afraid to talk to someone new. No offense, I'm sure you know what you're doing and everything, but I was just comfortable with Dr. Tecsan. She was really easy to talk to and I didn't think talking to anyone else would be the same.

"Plus, here I have my brother, his wife, my best friend, my boyfriend, plus friends from work. So I guess since I had people to vent to about little things, it was easier to ignore big things and push them to the back of my mind.

"But along with all the new people in my life, and being able to talk to my brother and Elle more, more problems come along with them too. Now I have to worry about making sure everyone else is happy. I have to make sure that Neal is okay because he is still torn up about Kate. I have to make sure Peter and Neal are getting along. I have to help Peter and Elle set up for the baby. I have to make sure Peter makes time for his wife and in a few months his son. I have to make sure I'm there when Caroline needs me because her ex-husband is making sure he makes this divorce as difficult as he can, and I have to help her with Lena—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," he interrupted gently and flashed an understanding smile as he put his pen down. When had he begun taking notes? "Now first I want to say I'm impressed. Even with my patients who have been through the therapy process before, getting them to talk you would think I was trying to kill them the way they fight me. But while I am glad you are talking, what you're saying worries me. It seems like you try to take the responsibilities of other people and put them on your own shoulders. I understand that you love all of these people, but you have to worry about yourself before you can worry about them. You won't be able to make the progress you need to make if you are constantly weighing yourself down with everyone else's problems.

"And just so I am clear on names, Peter is . . ."

"Peter is my brother, Elle is wife, Neal is my boyfriend and he . . . well his relationship with Peter is complicated, but for now let's just say co-workers, Caroline is my neighbor and best friend, Lena is her three year old daughter," I explained.

"And you said something about a Kate?"

"Kate was Neal's girlfriend before me. She was killed in an explosion back in March, Neal and I technically started going out in May, but there were some confusing turns before that."

Dr. Sheffield nodded and added onto his notes before looking back up at me. "Let's talk about you and Neal. That seems like it is probably the foremost relationship on your mind, and from the sounds of it the most stressful. Let's start with his relationship with your brother, and then you can take it where you want from there."

I took a deep breath and shifted again on the rather uncomfortable chair. "Alright, well, Neal doesn't exactly have the most . . . stellar past. My brother is an FBI agent, and he spent three years tracking Neal down. They suspected him of a multitude of things, but he was eventually convicted of bond forgery. He had three months left on a four year sentence when he escaped from prison. To find Kate, big surprise there."

"Neal wouldn't happen to be Neal Caffrey, would he?" he interrupted.

"Yeah," I replied awkwardly before I continued. "Anyways, Peter caught him the second time and eventually Neal convinced him to agree to a work release type thing. Now Neal lives with a woman named June and he has a two mile radius and they monitor him with an electronic monitoring anklet. He's going to be stuck like that for the next four years. Now I guess they're kind of friends in a way. It's a very odd arrangement.

"Any ways, in March Neal was supposed to leave with Kate, some agent from another office had arranged it. Peter went to the airport to try to get Neal to stay and while they were talking the plane blew up with Kate on board. I didn't find out until three days later. Peter called me and told me to go over to June's to see if I could get Neal to talk to me. He wouldn't even let me in, so I picked the lock and went in anyway. I eventually got him to talk and I hung out for a while. While we were talking and eating lunch it started snowing. I fell asleep later on and the next morning he told me we were snowed in. After being stuck there with him for about four days . . . well we had both been kind of emotional and the cabin fever got to us. . ." I blushed and allowed my statement to end unfinished. He was a smart guy, I'm sure he caught the hint.

"Anyways, the next day when the roads were finally clear he told me he wasn't ready for a new relationship yet—which I understood, it still hurt like hell, but I understood. We said we'd stay friends, but we ended up not speaking again until May. He and Peter came to see me at work because they needed help on a case. I went undercover as Neal's wife to help catch an art forger. But before he took me to start getting ready, we talked. He told me that he still loves Kate, as if it weren't obvious, but he also claimed to love me more. So we kind of just ended up being a couple from then on."

"I was right," he sighed, "that does seem to be the most stressful of your relationships. I noticed you seem to be a tad bitter when it comes to the subject of Kate. Why is that? Is it because you know Neal will never be one hundred percent yours? Or is there more?"

"Oh, trust me, it's more than that. I will admit that I am slightly upset that he won't get over her, but that isn't even close to the biggest issue. I would never expect, or even ask that he forget about her. She was a huge part of his life and the first person he completely fell for. I understand that, I was like that with my last boyfriend too. Sometimes it still hurts thinking of him, but I will always love Neal more. So in that respect I know how Neal feels.

"But most of the jealousy of Kate, and why I am not a huge fan, is for two other reasons."

"Let's start with the jealousy. If it's not because he still feels love for her, why are you jealous of her?" Dr. Sheffield prompted.

"It's because she was perfect. She was everything for him I could never be. She was part of his world, she understood it. Whenever he talked about her before, he made it sound like she was so perfect. I can never be that. He'll never talk to anyone about me the way he talked to them about her. Whenever people talk about me it's poking fun at some silly mistake I made, or how sorry they feel for me, or how I could have done so much more with my life than teaching a bunch of obnoxious teenagers. No one will ever describe me as a perfect being, especially not Neal." I was starting to well up slightly and he passed me a box of tissues. "Thanks."

"Now, tell me why you don't like her," he pressed.

"Because part of me still doesn't trust her. No matter how jealous I am of her, there is still the small part in the back of my mind that feels like she was using him. And if he finds that out now that she's dead, it will only devastate him more. I hate seeing him so upset, and he is just starting to become himself again. If he goes down again I don't know what I'll do." I was crying now, anymore and I may need to be sedated.

"Alright, Annabelle, you've done wonderfully for today." He gave me a moment to slow my tears before he spoke again. "Now I have one method that differs slightly from what you are used to from Dr. Tecsan. Now as you know, patients are often rather distressed when a session comes to an end. So, to try to give them something nice to think about, I always have them tell me something good that has happened. So, anything, or things if you want, that has made you happy recently, I want you to tell me about it. It can be anything you want. It can be something little, or something big."

I smiled slightly and wiped my eyes with a fresh tissue, I had used about five already. "Well, my brother called this morning and he told me that Elle is having a boy. Elle and I are baby shopping tomorrow before I head to work—I have my summer job at a bar downtown—and I am going to help Peter with the nursery over the weekend."

"That should be fun. And I can tell you're excited for a nephew. Do they have names yet?"

"Yeah, Elle told me about it last time we went baby shopping. They picked Chase Matthew for a boy. It's adorable. I can't wait for October!" I was going on excitedly now and the tears had come to a full stop.

"What is something you and Neal do together?"

I blushed slightly and smiled so wide it almost hurt. "We dance . . . well he dances and I just kind of hold on to him, but I love it just the same. And we both have pretty much every Rat Pack movie ever made, so whenever we are together on weekends we'll usually watch those. Our favorite is Ocean's Eleven."

Mary stuck her head in the door and grinned slightly at me before looking at Dr. Sheffield. "I'm sorry, doctor, but your next appointment is here. He seems pretty wound up."

"Alright, thank you Mary," he nodded and stood up, gesturing for me to do the same. "Go ahead in and sit down, Gavin, I'll be there in a moment," he told the teenage boy sitting in the waiting room chair. He pulled a pad from his pocket and scrawled something on it. "Here is a refill for your prescriptions, Annabelle. And try to relax a little, okay?"

"I will thank you Dr. Sheffield," I grinned slightly and half waved when he returned to his office. I quickly went to Mary so I could pay my co-pay and quickly headed back out, dialing Neal as I went.

"Hey, how'd it go?" he picked up almost immediately.

"Better than I had expected. I have to run down to the pharmacy and drop off my prescriptions, but I'll head right back after that, okay?"

"Alright, see you soon. I love you."

"I love you too, babe. Bye," I grinned slightly as I hung up and headed to the subway.

* * *

**Hey everybody! Thanks to all who reviewed the last time, I still can't believe I now have over one hundred reviews! And also thanks to all who contributed to naming Baby Chase! I can't wait until I begin to write the little guy into the story. Any ways, thanks for being so patient with me, I know it has taken me a while to post this. Like I said last time, I will try to keep the updates as regular as possible but there may be the occassional delay, although I will try to give you as much warning as I can.**

**Oh, and back to the subjet of Chase, there will be a second oneshot coming up. It won't be posted for a while because it takes place later on and I don't want to give away too many plot details, but I figured I'd go on and let you know in advance.**

**I can't wait to hear from you guys!**

**~TheRatPack**


	10. Surprises

**Chapter Ten: Surprises**

_Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of __tang__, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back. ~Mignon McLaughlin, __The Neurotic's Notebook__, 1960_

**Friday October 1, 2010**

"Hey guys," I greeted my seventh period AP European History class as I half scurried into the room almost a full minute after the late bell.

"Ms. B, you're late!" Mike, a senior who sat near the door, exclaimed in mock offense.

"I'm sorry, I was gossiping," I joked. "So are you guys excited? Your last chapter quiz you can use your notes on!"

A collective groan came from the group of fourteen juniors and seniors—a pretty small class compared to my other periods. Even the other AP Euro class I taught fourth period had twenty-one students. AP Euro was a really popular elective among the students back in Louisiana, but this was the first year it was offered at this school, so not many people were willing to sign up. The thirty five students in my fourth and seventh periods were the only ones signed up for this school year.

"Oh, stop whining," I rolled my eyes once they quieted down a little. "It had to happen eventually. You won't be able to use your notes on the AP exam in May," I told them for the millionth time as I passed out the scantrons and test packets.

"Can we just not take anymore chapter quizzes?" Lexi Miller asked from her seat in the middle of the room, the other students nodding their approval at this idea.

"Okay, and then I can just start collecting and grading your notes." I grinned mischievously as I placed the left over materials on the table at the front of the room and began erasing my front board.

"Never mind," she said quickly. "I'd rather fail a twenty point quiz than fifty or more points of notes."

"Good choice," I laughed and shook my head at her, going over to my desk and powering up my laptop.

"Ms. Burke you really don't look like a teacher," Sonya observed between bubbling in answers from her seat near my desk.

"Uhm, is that a compliment or an insult?" I asked with my eyebrows raised.

"I just mean that on days like today when you aren't all dressed up, you look like you could be our age, not like twenty-something," she clarified but avoided the question. "Like, most days you are wearing all your really cute dresses and skirts and stuff with your flats, but today you have your jeans, a t-shirt, and old converses. You still look good; you just look a lot younger."

"Uhm, thanks I guess," I half chuckled, taken aback by the bluntness of her comment.

"Who is that on your shirt by the way?" McKenna asked from her spot next to Sonya.

"Oh my god, go home," I stared at her, shaking my head in disappointment. "You are officially failing this class now just for that," I teased her and crossed my arms over my chest.

"I don't know who it is either," Mike added as he changed an answer.

"Seriously? Does anyone here know who it is? Someone say you do so I can pass at least one of you guys!" I looked around the class.

"Isn't that Frank Sinatra? My sister listens to his music. Why does it say 'Chairman of the Board' under his picture?" Morgan guessed after placing her finished quiz on the front table.

"Yes, it's Frank Sinatra, and Chairman of the Board is just something a lot of people called him back in the day," I explained as I typed in my password.

"Ooh, Ms. B, is that your boyfriend? He's seriously hot!" Sophia gushed, as she walked towards the front of the room to turn in her quiz, but becoming distracted by my background.

"Goodness, you guys are so nosey today," I sighed, feigning exasperation. Then losing the act, I nodded in confirmation. "Yes, that's my boyfriend Neal. And yes he is 'seriously hot' as you so eloquently put it. Do all of you want to see the picture since she brought it up?"

I got a bunch of yeses and a few nods, so I unplugged the cord to the projector from my work PC that the school had provided and plugged it into my laptop so that they all could see the image. "I know this is the highlight of your day, right?" I asked sarcastically with a smirk. The picture on the screen was of Neal and me at Elizabeth's baby shower. We were sitting together on the couch, my head leaning on his shoulder, his arm securely around my waist, both of us smiling widely at the camera and Satchmo was stretched out across both of our laps.

There were various noises of approval from the girls while the four boys in the class just nodded and looked back to the quiz. "Ms. B is that your personal laptop?" Nicole asked me.

"Yes ma'am. Why?"

"Can you show us more pictures?"

"Once everyone is done the quiz and I run the scantrons through so you all can see your grades. I don't have anything else planned for you guys today, so if we still have time after that, which we more than likely will since it looks like everyone is done or almost done, then I'll show you guys some pics. Okay?"

"Sh-weet," Nicole nodded to herself as she turned her attention back to the quiz.

My smirk came back to my face as I scanned the room and noticed Mike with his phone in his lap, fingers flying over the keys. "I guess I can text now too, since Mike is allowed to," I said and pulled out my phone, checking some of my messages that I had gotten during the day. One was from Elle thanking me for helping her reorganize Chase's room yesterday, and one from Caroline asking if I wanted to come over for dinner tomorrow night.

"Ms. B, I think you should take his phone," Lexi said teasingly and flicked the back of his head as she walked passed him to put her test on the front table.

"I know, but since I text in school too that would make me a hypocrite. So I am just a total enabler. "

"God, Mike, look what you've done," Lexi scolded him. "Turning our teacher into an enabler."

"Yeah, and to think this is one of my better classes," I chuckled to myself and turned the projector off as I opened up my pictures, and went to the folder with all the pictures I had taken since moving back to New York. I opened up a full-screen image of the first picture and scanned the desks of my students. "All of you finished? Alright I'll be back with your graded tests," I got up quickly and grabbed the stack of answer sheets and headed to the social studies office to run them through to be scanned and graded.

I was back less than five minutes later and handed the papers back face down so no one else could see what they got. "I took a peek while they were getting graded, and I'm pretty sure the highest grade was a fifteen out of twenty. No one got anything higher did they? So, it'll be a five point curve. But seriously, you guys need to start studying your notes. After today you won't be able to use them anymore, and if your only getting fifteens with them, that makes me really nervous. You guys know if you're having trouble with anything you can come talk to me before or after school, or email me or something. I get here at around six-thirty to seven in the morning, and I'm usually here until about four. Yes, McKenna?" I asked when she raised her hand.

"Do you think we could do more class discussions like we did with chapter ten? That helped me a lot."

"Pfft, you just like sitting in a circle," Sonya teased her. "But that actually was really helpful."

"Okay, we can do one for the next chapter, and then I'll see about doing more from there," I nodded my head, already remapping my lesson plans in my head. "Alright, you guys still wanna see these pictures?" I got a bunch of enthusiastic yeses from the girls and the guys just shrugged. I quickly recollected the quizzes so I could put them in the grade book later before getting started.

I got through about half of the folder, they kept having me stop on certain pictures with questions of who was in the pictures, where it was, what was going on, up until the bell rang at two-fifteen for them all to go home.

"Excuse me," a tentative voice came to me from the door about half an hour after all the students were long gone. I didn't look away from the work computer and kept putting grades in, but I called back for whoever it was to come in. I was surprised when I finally turned away from the PC to find myself face to face with a woman about the same age as me, give or take a few years.

"Uhm, can I help you with something?" I asked and stood to shake her hand when she offered it. I knew almost all of the staff at the school, so I knew she didn't work here. And unless she had a kid when she was about ten, she couldn't be the parent of a student.

"Yes or at least I hope so. You are Annabelle Burke, right?"

"Yes, and you are . . ." I trailed off awkwardly.

"Cassidy . . . Cassidy Caffrey. I'm trying to find my brother. A woman named June said she didn't know where he was, but that you would probably know," she told me quickly, staring at me anxiously.

"You-You're Neal's sister?" I asked in shock and sat down suddenly. Neal had never said anything about having a sister. As a matter of fact, he had never told me anything about his family at all. "I didn't know he had any siblings."

"It doesn't surprise me that he didn't tell you. Our last conversation didn't exactly go well," she admitted, looking down quickly and then looking back up at me again. Getting a good view of her, it was actually kind of obvious that she and Neal were related. She had the same dark coffee toned hair and electric blue eyes that he had.

"Sibling fights are never pretty, Cassidy," I sighed. "As close as I am with Peter, we used to fight constantly when we both still lived at home. Did you drive here or walk?"

"I walked," she answered and held up a small suitcase. "I went from the airport to meet Mozzie at the park, he sent me to June, and June sent me to you."

"Just be glad I work at a school in Manhattan and not in Queens where I live. Come on, you can come home with me, and stay with me if you need a place, and I'm going over Neal's tonight, so I'll bring you with me," I offered and began shutting down the computer and packing up all the things I would need to take home.

"No, please, I don't want to impose or anything," she said quickly. "I can get a hotel or something."

"Not a problem at all, Cassidy. I'll need help carrying all of this anyway," I winked at her. I handed her my binder of papers I needed to grade and then slung my laptop case over my shoulder and grabbed my purse. "Alrighty, let's roll, girl."

"Thanks for this Annabelle," she grinned at me and followed me out.

"Don't worry about it. But I do want to know what exactly this fight of yours was about. When was the last time you saw him anyway?"

"Fifteen years ago," she told me, making me stop in my tracks.

"You haven't seen or talked to him in _fifteen years_?" I asked, my jaw nearly hitting the floor. Somewhere in the back of my mind my inner vanity grumbled. She was just about as tall as her brother, only about two inches shorter really, and I had to look up to talk to her. "It must've been some fight."

"It was. I was ten, he was seventeen. It was right after he dropped out of high school. I walked into his room in the middle of the night like I always did when I had a nightmare, and found him packing his bags. If our parents had been home, we would've woken them right up the way we were screaming at each other. I didn't want him to leave; he was more like a parent to me than our mom and dad were. But he was determined to make it out of that town, no matter what. We both said a lot of things we didn't mean, and haven't talked since. When I saw he was out of prison last year, I started saving up, put in a request for time off at work, and, well, here I am," she explained as we headed for the subway.

"He's never told me anything about his, er your, family. Whenever I try to bring it up he finds a way to avoid the question," I told her as we held on tightly to the poles in the center isle of the car; naturally there were no seats available.

"I can't blame him. Like I said, we got pretty nasty that night. He has quite the temper if you push him hard enough."

"Oh, I know," I agreed quickly, shuddering slightly as I remembered the scene just a few weeks ago when Neal had finally confronted Fowler. I wasn't there, but Peter had told me enough to scare me. Neal had had a gun. Neal never uses guns, _never_.

"So do you think he'll still be mad?" she asked, anxiety flooding her voice again.

I sighed and shrugged. "I honestly don't know. He is your brother, and I seriously don't think he would turn away family. But on the other hand, you probably know just as well as I do, he can hold a grudge if he really wants to."

"This is true," she nodded and then the rest of the ride to Queens was spent in silence.

When we got to the apartment, I set her up in my guest bedroom and let her get settled and I got some grading out of the way while we passed the time until five when I was supposed to meet Neal. We intended when we made the plan the other night for him to call me when he was finished working for the day, but now I had to somehow convince him to stay in and hang out at June's. And the one method I thought of to convince him . . . well he would be especially unhappy with me when he found out my real motive.

It was around four thirty when he finally called me. "Hey babe," I answered, picking at my navy blue nail polish nervously.

"Hey Belle," he answered. It sounded like he was in a good. Great, so now I get to feel guilty too. If he was already in a bad mood then I wouldn't feel quite so bad forcing him to face a fight he had fifteen years ago, but now I was jut going to destroy his day. Go me! But so far I really liked Cassidy, and we were getting along pretty well for having just met, and I wanted to do this for her. Plus I was also kind of mad at him for not telling me he had a little sister, especially since they, according to Cassidy, used to be so close. So a small part of me felt that he deserved to have his day ruined. God, when did I become so vengeful?

"So, about tonight," I started.

"Yeah, do you have someplace in mind you want to go? Are you still at the school? If you haven't left yet, it's in my radius, I can just meet you there and we'll figure it out then."

"No, I'm at home. And, well, uhm, actually, I was kind of hoping we could just stay at June's tonight," Cassidy walked out of her room while I was midsentence, making me feel both guilty and embarrassed.

"Why? I thought you wanted to go out?" he asked, obviously not catching my hint. For such a smart guy, he can have his so-called 'blonde moments'.

"Yes, well, babe, we really haven't had any time _alone_ recently . . ." I trailed off blushing as Cassidy tried her hardest not to laugh at me.

"Oh," he said quickly, finally catching on. "Yeah, well then I guess I'll meet you at my place then. Do you want me to cook something for dinner first, or do you just want to order something later?"

"It doesn't really matter, whichever is easier," I answered quickly, begging whatever powerful beings might be out there to put this conversation to an end.

"Alright, I guess I'll see you when you get here. Love you," he laughed slightly at my hurry, probably misinterpreting it.

"Love you too," I grimaced as I hung up the phone. "God, I am such a bitch," I groaned and put my head in my hands as Cassidy burst into hysterical laughter.

"Wow that is the best thing I've ever heard! As grossed out as I am by the idea of my brother having sex that will just make the look on his face when he sees me so much funnier. I can't believe that you did that," she exclaimed as she continued giggling.

And I couldn't help but laugh too. I still felt guilty, but just the fact that she found it as funny as she did made me start. "He's gonna be so pissed at me," I laughed and ran my hand through my hair.

"Yeah, probably," she nodded her agreement.

"Come on, let's get going," I shook my head and shoved my phone in my pocket and grabbed my keys.

Once again our journey was quiet, the both of us becoming more and more nervous as we drew closer to June's house, all the laughter from earlier completely gone from our minds. "Are you ready?" I asked her, scratching my arms as we waited for someone to answer the front door.

"No, but do I really have a choice?"

"I guess not," I sighed as the door opened. "Hey, June, how are you?" I asked her, putting a smile on my face as she hugged me.

"Well, I'm doing just fine Annabelle. And how are those teenagers treating you?"

"Giving me migraines, but it's always worth it," I grinned at her.

"Yeah, well, you're a stronger woman than I am. Neal is up in his room. And glad to see you back here again young lady," she nodded at Cassidy, who smiled and half waved as June walked off.

"Come on," I nodded for her to follow me upstairs. "Do you want me to go in first and then come get you?" She didn't speak but just nodded rapidly. She looked like I felt whenever I got really anxious. "It'll be okay, Cassidy," I tried to reassure her and squeezed her arm gently before heading into Neal's room, leaving her waiting in the hall.

"Hey," he grinned widely at me, leaving the stove to come meet me at the door.

I tried pretending I wasn't scared to death and smiled back, wrapping my arms tightly around my neck and standing on my toes so I could meet him for a kiss. "Oh, what are you making me?" I asked, peeking over his shoulder at the stove.

"You'll see," he smirked at me and kissed me again, holding me tighter to him.

"Mm, babe, wait," I forced myself to break away, something I always hate doing when I'm kissing him. "I need to talk to you about something. It's really important."

"What?" he asked, looking more than a little disappointed and slightly concerned.

"Why haven't you ever told me about your family?" I asked.

"Because, we have more important things to do." He leaned down and tried to kiss me again, but I wouldn't let him.

"No, we need to talk about this now. Why is it that I didn't find out you had a sister until she came into my classroom after school today?" I demanded and crossed my arms over my chest and stepping away from him, my temper suddenly flaring up.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, obviously confused by my change in demeanor. Thinking back on it, I'm pretty sure that was the first time he had ever seen me legitimately angry.

"Let me show you," I glared at him and turned on my heel back to the door. I threw it open and went out to see Cassidy standing nearly frozen against the wall. "Come on, Cassidy," I held out a hand to her, which she took after a second's hesitation.

"Hi, Neal," she greeted him meekly. I stood to the side, letting them do their own thing while my anger boiled inside me, growing stronger by the second.

"Cassidy? Is that really you?" he asked in utter disbelief.

She rolled her eyes and grinned slightly. "No, I made it up and tracked you down for fun. Yes it's me."

"Yes, it's you, sarcastic," he flashed a grin of his own and hugged her tightly. At least he's on someone's good side again, because for some reason I just couldn't get over the fact that he had hidden her from me. It's like the anger jumped on me out of nowhere and now that it had its teeth in me it didn't want to let go.

"I'm so sorry," she sighed when they pulled away. "I shouldn't have tried to stop you."

"No, I shouldn't have left you alone," he replied.

"Don't say that. Look what you'd have missed out on if you'd stayed," she gestured to me. "Although, you may want to miss what comes after I leave," she commented after taking in the scowl on my face, which I'm sure was very attractive.

"Ah, yeah," he sighed, shifting under my gaze. He knew he was in trouble. "Maybe we should talk later. Peter is starting his paternity leave tomorrow; maybe we can meet for lunch or something?"

"Yeah, here," she pulled a notepad and pen from her purse and scrawled down her phone number. "And Annabelle is letting me stay with her, so you can call me there too."

"Here," I told her and held out my keys, "so you can actually go inside instead of waiting for me."

"Thanks," she half grinned. Then she raised her eyebrows and looked between the two of us. "Good luck, Neal, I think you'll need it."

"Oh he will," I grinned tensely at her as she left. "You know, it's sad that right now I prefer your sister who I just met a few hours ago," I said to him once she was gone.

"Belle," he started tentatively.

"No, don't even start to argue with me," I snapped starting to raise my voice as I stood up straighter. I'm sure I didn't look very imposing, but it was apparently enough to get him quiet. God, what was wrong with me? I normally won't even defend myself when fighting with someone, let alone start the fight. "What else haven't you told me about? You don't have a wife and kids you're hiding somewhere do you? How many times have I asked you about your family? How many opportunities have you had to tell me about this? We've been together for almost five months, Neal! Five fucking months! And for how badly things ended between you two, how is it that I haven't heard about her before? You know more about me than Peter, Elle, Caroline, and both of my therapists combined. Why is it that I can trust you with information like that, but you can't even let me know that you have a sibling?"

"Really, so you've told me everything about your life?" he snapped, trying to turn it around on me.

"I never said I did. But I guess now it's a good thing I didn't because now at least we're somewhere close to even," I shouted, throwing my arms up.

"Fine, you want to know about my family? Alright, our dad was a drunk, our mom was always working, and they left me to take care of Cassidy. I was seventeen and selfish and got tired of playing dad, so I dropped out of school and got the hell out of Texas. I started out in Vegas where I met Mozzie, and then I'm sure Peter can fill you in on how I spent the fifteen years after that. I've had Mozzie check up on her from time to time, but I haven't talked to her again until today. Satisfied?" he yelled back, his hands curling into fists. And just like that, the anger all drained from my body and I felt like I was going to start crying any second.

"I-I'm sorry," I stuttered and swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, a pathetic attempt to keep the make up from running down my face. "I don't know why I got so mad . . . I just," I sighed. "I thought we could trust each other. Why couldn't you talk to me about this?"

"Because I didn't want to fight you about it," he let out a frustrated laugh at the irony. "The last person I talked to about Cassidy was Kate. We fought for three days because she wanted me to track her down to fix things, but it was also when Peter first started chasing me and I didn't want to risk it."

I wiped my eyes again before walking back over to him and letting him pull me back into his arms. "I'm sorry I yelled at you," I sniffed. "And that I'm getting make up on your shirt," I added with a small laugh.

"Don't worry about it. And you're right, I should've told you sooner," he sighed and rested his chin on the top of my head.

"Gah, leave me alone," I snapped at my phone and silenced it almost as soon as the ringtone started. Whatever Peter had to say could wait until tomorrow.

"Feeling bipolar lately?" he asked with a slight laugh when I all but threw my phone onto the table.

"Shut up," I rolled my eyes and leaned my head on his chest again. "I don't feel like talking to anyone else right now."

"But apparently Peter really wants to talk to you," he sighed when we both began to feel his blackberry buzzing in his pocket. "Yeah," he answered on the second ring. His eyes widened and he made a few hums of agreement before finally saying, "Yeah, she's with me now. I'll tell her and then we'll be there as soon as we can. Yeah, bye."

"What's going on?" I looked up at him, my eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

"Elizabeth's in labor, they just checked into the hospital, and she's been asking for both of us, but more specifically you."

"Oh my god!" I nearly jumped away from him. "Come on, let's go," I pushed when he wasn't moving fast enough.

He just shook his head and laughed at me before going to turn off the stove. "You're just the aunt and you're this nervous? I hate to imagine what Peter will be like when we get there."

"Oh, just hush and get a move on," I snapped and shoved his shoulder lightly as he pulled his jacket back on and placed his hat on his head. "Do you want a jacket? I think I have a hoodie that you left here a while back."

"Yeah, sure," I huffed and held my hand out impatiently. I yanked it on as soon as he handed it over and was out the door a second later.

* * *

**So who else is uber excited for Chase? I know I am! I can't wait to write the little booger in! It will make my White Collar withdrawl a little less painful as I wait in agony for January to come. And as for you loverly readers of mine, I have two things I would like to say. First, I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to update and thank you for being patient with me. And second, you guys can now talk to Annabelle! She has her own twitter and gmail accounts which I personally maintain. Her twitter account is belleburke, and her gmail account is aburke1984. So make sure you follow her, because she tweets quite often about whats going on in her life, and feel free to email her anytime and I will make sure she replies!**

**Thanks guys! Much love until next time,**

**~TheRatPack**

**Oh, and P.S. in case you didn't realize it for yourself as you read the chapter, I am keeping Mozzie alive and well in my story. I don't care whether he survives the shot or dies in the show, I love the character and he will remain a part of the Stolen Sweets world.**


	11. Caroline and Lena

**Chapter Eleven: Caroline and Lena**

_Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,  
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before  
~Edgar Allan Poe_

**Monday, October 04, 2010**

I tapped my pen absentmindedly on the table as I pretended to pay attention to the faculty meeting. I hated Mondays. Especially when I was dying to spend time with Peter, Elle, and my nephew. Chase was without a doubt the most beautiful baby boy on the planet. I posted a picture of him on Twitter Saturday and all of my followers agreed. And I was also anxious to get home and have my dinner date with Caroline and Lena. Caroline texted me earlier and told me she had something really important to talk to me about; she also told me to bring Neal over, and Cassidy was invited too. Luckily, the Bureau had given Neal special permission to leave his radius while Peter was on his four weeks paternity leave. The only condition was that he either had to be with me or another agent.

Scott looked over at me and laughed silently as I shifted in my seat and began shaking my leg. "You are so ADD," he chuckled under his breath.

"Shut it, Cook, you aren't any better," I hissed back through a grin.

"Don't lump me in with you. At least I can sit still, Tiny," he teased me and nudged me with his elbow.

"Bite me," I snapped and stuck my tongue out at him like the mature adult I am. He was about to say something back, but was cut off when Principal Roberts called the meeting to an end. I hadn't listened to a single word of what was said, but I was still glad to get out of there. I had already locked up my classroom before coming down to the cafeteria, so I just slung my purse over my shoulder and headed out to the street. I was going to meet Neal at Peter's, obsess over Chase for a bit, and then we were taking a cab over to my building, stopping in my apartment so I could change and to grab Cassidy, then we would finally go to Caroline's.

I wasn't in the mood for subway shenanigans and various amounts of nonsense, so I went ahead and walked from the school to Peter and Elle's. It only took about half an hour, if that, until I was walking through their door; they learned a long time ago not to lock the door when they knew I was coming over. "Where is my favorite nephew?" I demanded, not too loudly in case he was asleep, as I walked into the living room.

"Oh he's just been waiting anxiously for your arrival," Elle grinned tiredly at me as I took my coat off and hung it over the railing and nodded over to Peter, who was sitting next to her on the couch cradling Chase carefully in his arms. He had finally lost the nervous look that had been almost constantly on his face since I first saw him at the hospital Friday night. Now they both just looked like they were ready to pass out. Is it weird that I _want_ to be able to have that look?

"My turn," I smiled widely and stood somewhat patiently, waiting for Peter to hand him over.

"Be careful, Peter, she may not give him back," Neal laughed slightly from his seat on the arm of the couch.

"Oh hush. Just because it's true doesn't mean you have to announce it," I laughed. Chase made a small gurgling noise and shifted in my arms before grabbing my index finger in his tiny fist and gripping it tightly. "See, he'd like coming to live with me," I declared as if that action were indisputable evidence.

"Yes, that's exactly what that meant," Elle replied sarcastically and laughed at me. "God, girl, just go have one of your own."

"Pfft, maybe I should." I tried not to break into hysterics at the look that brought to Peter's face. But Neal just grinned cryptically; I couldn't tell if he would be for or against that idea. And they say women are hard to read. Yeah, right. But seriously, if he would go for it, I probably would. I know that's a bit soon in our relationship, but I can't help it. I've always known I wanted kids, and, well, could you think of a better man to be the father than Neal? I can't think of anyone else.

"Not funny," Peter glared back and forth between me and Neal.

"Totally funny," I smirked at him.

"Definitely funny," Neal agreed and winked at me.

"I agree with them, so majority rules. It is indeed funny," Elle added after a yawn and poked his side teasingly before leaning on his shoulder with her eyes half closed.

"Mama, you need sleep," I told Elle and shook my head at her.

"He's the one that needs to sleep. If he slept more, I'd be perfectly fine," she replied and pointed at Chase.

"Chase," I looked down at his bright blue eyes and pretended to scold him. "I know you are the most handsome little man on the planet, but that's no excuse for keeping you're mommy awake all night and day, sir."

"I'm sure that'll work," Neal chuckled at me.

"Yup. Of course it will."

"We should probably go soon if you want to get to Caroline's by six," he told me after I obsessed over the baby for a few minutes longer.

I almost protested but handed Chase back to Peter. "Fine," I grumbled and pouted slightly. "Bye sweetie," I leaned down and hugged Elle and kissed both Peter and Chase on the cheek. I shrugged back into my coat while Neal said his goodbyes and threw a wave back over my shoulder as we walked out together.

"So do you have any idea why Caroline wants us both over tonight?" Neal asked, slipping his arm around my waist as he used his other hand, and a twenty dollar bill, to hail a cab.

"I don't know," I replied, biting my lip as I wondered the same thing. The only things that had been going on with Caroline lately is Lena getting over her first ear infection, and she had been dealing with a really bad chest cold for the past few weeks and had been staying home from work. But I assumed that since she was having us and Cassidy over for dinner that she was over that. It couldn't be about her ex, he had run off to L.A. with his girlfriend as soon as it was decided Caroline would get full custody.

"I guess we'll find out when we get there," he told me as we slid into the back of a cab, squeezing my side gently. I knew it was his way of telling me not to worry too much. How is it that he always knows exactly when I start to get myself worked up in time to tell me to knock it off? Most of the time I don't even know when that is.

"Hey Cass," I greeted her as we walked into my apartment. She was curled up on my couch reading a copy of _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ that I had let her borrow.

"Hey, guys," she looked up and grinned at us, temporarily looking away from the pages.

I glanced over at the clock. "We're gonna head over in like ten-ish minutes, okay?"

"Yes ma'am," she replied and saluted a small glint in her eye before she went back to reading.

"I'll go help you pick what you want to wear," Neal smirked and followed me when I started back to my room.

"Yeah, _that's_ what you want to do," Cassidy snorted sarcastically and I laughed slightly. The girl had a point.

"Hey, you said it, not me," he laughed before closing the door behind us.

"I can't believe you two didn't talk for fifteen years," I observed as I pulled off the knee length purple dress and kicked off my black flats before I started digging through my closet. "Alright should I wear Bride of Frankenstein or Teen Wolf? Ooh or Alex P Keaton for President?" I asked as I looked through the tee shirts hanging in my closet. I love how I already change in front of him and what not after only five months. Then again, to be honest with myself, we've been having sex for seven months so I guess it really doesn't matter.

"Bride of Frankenstein," he answered after thinking it over for a second.

"Cool," I nodded and grabbed the black tee off its hanged and pulled it over my head. I followed it shortly with a pair of old jeans and then a pair of socks. At this point, I don't think I need to tell you anymore that I ended up wearing my converses. "I don't think these will last me too much longer," I said sadly when I noticed another small hole forming in the side. It was bad enough the soles were thin enough that I could feel the texture of the ground through them. I would probably get one more month out of them at best.

"Why haven't you gotten new ones?" he asked, shaking his head at their ragged appearance.

"Because, these are my favorites. A new pair wouldn't be the same," I insisted and crossed my arms over my chest.

"You're right, because a new pair wouldn't be at risk of falling apart any second," he laughed at me.

"Oh, hush," I rolled my eyes and stood on my toes to miss his cheek before heading for my door. "You ready Cass?" I asked as I shoved my phone into my pocket and grabbed my keys.

"That I am. Holy Sammy Davis Jr. those shoes are old," she said when I was in her sight range.

"What is with you Caffreys and obsessing over my shoes?" I rolled my eyes and walked out and stood to wait for them in the hallway. Neal and Cassidy followed me a few moments later and once I checked that the door was locked we walked the whole fifteen feet down the hall to Caroline's door.

Almost as soon as I knocked I heard a loud but hoarse voice yell for me to come in immediately followed by a hacking cough that sounded rather painful. "You okay, Carrie?" I asked, immediately going to Caroline's side when I saw her doubled over on the couch, ready to cough up a lung.

"I'm fine," she waved me off a few moments later once she was actually breathing again. "Lena," she called out, "Annabelle and Neal are here, and they have a new friend for you to meet."

"Annabelle!" Lena's little voice cried and she came barreling out of her room and grabbed me around the knees as soon as I stood, knocking me back onto the couch. "I've missed you!"

"Oh, I've missed you too babe! I can't believe it's been forever since we've seen each other," I replied and gave her a kiss before she diverted her attention from me to Neal.

"He Neal," she greeted him and also hugged him around the knees, granted she didn't knock him over, before grabbing his hand. "Come with me. You haven't seen my big girl bed. You gotta though. It's important."

"It sounds important," he agreed with her and allowed her to lead him down the hallway.

"Oh, Caroline, this is Neal's sister Cassidy. Cassidy, this is my best friend Caroline Stabler. And the little ball of energy that hijacked your brother was her daughter Lena Edwards," I made the introductions.

"She's adorable," Cassidy commented with a smile.

"Yeah, she gets that from me," Caroline replied before being attacked by another bout of coughing.

"Carrie, are you sure you're okay?" I asked again, rubbing her back as the hacking came to a close.

"I'm going to talk to you and Neal about that when Lena decides to release him," she once again waved me off. She turned to talk to Cassidy once Neal and Lena returned. "I'm sorry, I know you just met us and everything, but would you mind keeping an eye on my little monster while I talk to Neal and Annabelle?"

"Not a problem," Cassidy smiled down at Lena encouragingly. "Hey sweetie, I'm Cassidy. I'm Neal's little sister."

"Hi," she said shyly and gripped Neal's pants leg as she offered a small smile at Cassidy.

"So I hear, you have a pretty sweet collection of rubber ducks," Cassidy grinned slyly. When Lena nodded, her smile widening a little, Cass continued, "Why don't you show me while they all talk about boring old people stuff?" Lena just nodded and grabbed Cassidy's hand and dragged her back to her room.

"Sit down guys," Carrie sighed and gestured to the free space on the couch to her left.

"What's going on Caroline?" Neal asked, securing his arm around my middle as I gripped his other hand tightly. Something about Caroline's demeanor tonight was making me extremely anxious and had I not bitten off all of my nails, Neal's had probably would have been bleeding.

"I'm sick, guys," she started. It was then that I noticed how tired and thin she looked, and it scared me. It reminded me all too much of my grandfather before he died. Before he died of . . .

"I went to the doctor Thursday," she continued, cutting off my dark thought. "You know that I've been coughing like this for a bit over a month now, and I felt sick a lot before that too."

I started to speak, but no sound came out. I cleared my throat and tried again. "What did they say?"

"They sent me a letter with the details of my diagnosis in it that I got in today's mail. But I got a call yesterday, and they told me the general diagnosis. I . . . I have cancer," she got too choked up at this point and wiped her streaming green eyes before pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handing it over to me and Neal. I reached one shaking hand out to grab it from her, only releasing Neal from the grip of my other hand long enough to unfold it so I could read.

I was hyperventilating, I realized as I attempted to take in the words. I couldn't take in the letter in its entirety, but I did catch all the most important phrases. _"Patient diagnosed with Stage IIIB non-small cell lung cancer, inoperable large cell carcinomas," "pneumitis in the left lung," "Ten centimeter tumor," "has begun to spread into the trachea," "patient has and estimated 13 months left with treatment." _

"I . . . I mean . . . there's got to be something they can do for this," I gasped and tried to hold it together.

When Caroline just shook her head and cried harder, Neal spoke for her. "Belle, honey, its lung cancer. There aren't any current treatments that can cure it. By the time they catch it, it's already too late."

I let out a choked sob and wriggled free of Neal's grip so I could hold onto Caroline. Both of us sat there sobbing into each other's shoulders like little kids and Neal gently rubbed my back. This was the one time he didn't have anything he could say or do to make it better.

I'm not sure how long we sat there like that before we finally pulled away. "I'm sorry," I sniffed after a short silence as we both stared at each other sadly; "I know I'm not making this any easier for you."

"Don't be," she reassured me and squeezed my hand.

"So what are they going to do?" Neal asked, placing a comforting hand on my hip.

"They want to try a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. They said with how close I am to being in stage four, it probably won't drastically change the life expectancy, it might add a month or two maximum, but it at the very least will make it a little less painful," she told us, halfway optimistically wearing a wry smile.

"What about Lena?" I gasped, my thoughts immediately jumped to the little girl in the room down the hall.

She sighed and straightened her posture as she tightened her grip on my hand. "That's what I wanted to talk to you two about. I never named god parents when she was born. There was just no one I trusted enough to leave her with. But now I know you two. I don't know of any other individuals, let alone couples, that I would trust more with my daughter. And not to mention that Lena absolutely adores both of you. When . . . when I die," she choked over the words and had to take a steadying breath. "When I die, I'd like nothing more than for Lena to go to the two of you."

"As much as I wish you didn't have to phrase it like that," I hated hearing her say _when _as opposed to _if_. "Of course we'll take care of Lena for you. I'd do anything for you and for her," I told her before pulling her into another tight hug. After releasing her we all stood and Neal gave her a tight hug of his own.

"Come on, time to eat," she called back to Cassidy and Lena before she began coughing again.

**Wednesday, October 06, 2010**

"Just a minute," I called from the kitchen, setting down my half full glass of iced tea before going to answer they door. "Hey, ladies," I grinned widely when I found myself faced with Caroline and Lena.

"Hey," Caroline grinned back and gave me a one armed hug.

"Do you want to come in for a bit before you go?" I asked Caroline as she passed Lena's hand from her grip to mine.

"I'm already running late getting to the hospital, but I'll see you Saturday when we see Elle to help with the . . . thing," she ended vaguely when she noticed Neal sitting in the living room behind me. His thirty-third birthday was coming up on Monday and Caroline, Cassidy, and I were all going to Elle's Saturday to visit Chase and help plan a surprise party for him while she sent Peter to the grocery store. Elle always did the shopping and he had no clue what to get, so we figured that'd give us at least a good hour and a half to two hours.

"Alrighty. Do you know if you're going to have to spend the night or will you be back later?" I asked, running my fingers absentmindedly through Lena's light blond hair.

"They want to keep me overnight since it's my first time, just to see what effect the chemo has on me. Depending on how they think I do, I may be able to come home afterwards the next time," she sighed. The depression I saw on her face easily dominated any I had ever felt. She knelt down and put a fake smile on so she could talk to Lena. "Now baby, you need to be very good for Annabelle and Neal. They are the ones taking care of you while mommy goes away, and you need to listen to everything they tell you."

"Okay," she nodded obediently and kissed Caroline quickly. "I love you Mommy."

"I love you too baby," Caroline flashed a watery grin and gave her a second kiss and standing back up. "I'll be back to pick her up sometime tomorrow."

"Bye, honey," I called after her before shutting the door.

"Can we go shopping?" Lena asked immediately, looking up at me through hopeful blue eyes.

"What do you want to go shopping for?" I asked through half a laugh, picking her up so she was resting on my hip before going back to finish pouring myself some tea.

"So you and Neal can buy me presents," she said as if it were common knowledge as she smiled widely at me.

"Okay," I gave in immediately. "But only because you're so funny."

"I try," she smirked sassily, something she had no doubt picked up from me.

"Neal, do you hear her being sassy over here?" I asked, feigning shock as Neal joined us in the kitchen.

"Yeah," he grinned slyly before grabbing Lena from me. "Which is why, I have to hang her upside down," he continued teasingly and secured his arm around her waist securely before bending slightly so she was hanging off his waist upside down shrieking and giggling enthusiastically.

"Again," she demanded with a high pitched laugh once he pulled her upright.

"Okay, one more," he laughed before doing it again. I just giggled silently and sipped my tea as I watched them. He really would make a great father one day. Hopefully one day soon, if I can get him to cave. But it helps that now I have his sister on my side. She wants a niece or nephew just about as badly as I want a child. Most of our day has been spent bugging him on twitter about it.

"Shopping now?" she asked when she was right side up again.

"Sure, we can go shopping now," I told her.

"Yay," she clapped her hands together excitedly before hugging Neal around the neck.

"Just let me grab my purse and shoes and we can head out," I told them and slipped back to my bedroom after sticking my mostly full glass of tea in the fridge. "Damn," I cursed, louder than I meant to, when I picked my converses up just to find that on the right shoe the black canvas was almost halfway detached from the rubber.

"You okay?" Cassidy called through the wall between my room and hers.

"Yeah and no. My converses are officially dead," I called back. I heard Neal laugh from the living room, no doubt meant to be interpreted as and 'I told you so.' I sighed and tossed the shoes back to the floor and just slipped on my plain black flats which I normally only wore to work, and grabbed my purse before heading back out. "Not a word," I told Neal, holding a finger up to silence any teasing.

"Wasn't going to say anything," he replied, but the mischief in his eyes told a different story.

"Yeah, good story," I rolled my eyes and laughed slightly and gestured for the two of them to head out first. "Cass, we're taking Lena out. I'll call you when we are on our way back."

"Okay," she returned just as I was closing the door behind me.

Our afternoon was flooded with one children's' store after another, Neal or myself carrying her for a majority of the stores—she only walked through about three of them, until at about five, Lena decided she was tired of shopping and wanted to go to the park. Which was a blessing since neither of us could really say no to her when she asked for something. "The one with the pretty water fountain," she detailed as we agreed to the new plan. Thankfully we had about an hour or two before the sun started to go down.

"Alright, we'll go to the one with the fountain," I agreed with a laugh.

"Wait," she insisted, stopping in her tracks and gripping our hands tightly so we would stop as well. "Piggy back ride," she stated and looked up pleadingly at Neal.

He hesitated as if he were going to refuse, but almost a split second later he switched to smiling and knelt down so she could climb onto his back. It was only a ten minute walk from where the most recent store was located and as soon as we got within sight of the so-called 'pretty fountain' she nearly jumped off his back in an effort to get to it faster.

"Stay where we can see you, Sweetie," I warned her as she went to look over the edge at the water while Neal and I took our time walking to a bench a few feet away from where she was located. "So when do I get my piggy back ride?" I teased him and elbowed his side softly.

He just shook his head and laughed at me as we both sat down to watch her.

"So were you serious when you posted that thing on twitter, or were you just trying to get me and Cassidy to leave you alone?" I asked a few minutes later, curiosity getting the best of me. As I mentioned, we were both bugging him about when Cassidy would get a nice or nephew, and after a while of us being obnoxious, he said " CassidyCaffrey belleburke if it will get you to leave me alone, I won't start trying but we can stop preventing."

"If you're serious about wanting to, then yes," he answered with a sigh, but smiled none the less. And of course, in the five seconds we had looked away from the fountain, we heard a splash followed by high pitched laughter.

"Uncle Neal, look I'm a fishy!" Lena called as she sat down in the fountain, soaked from head to toe.

"Oh my god," I snorted as I held back a laugh and gaped at the little girl.

"Hold this," he chuckled and placed his hat on my head before going to get her. "Come on, Le, you can't swim in here," he told her and tried to reach out his hand for her to grab.

But she didn't want to hear it. "Why not?" she whined and pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.

"This is just for people to look at, Sweetie, it's not a pool," he explained, trying to be patient. But when she still didn't budge, he reached down and grabbed her under the arms. She resisted at first, but then loosely wrapped her arms and legs around him, dejectedly hiding her face in his shoulder.

"You two are soaked," I half laughed when they got back to where I was standing. "At least it was on a day when you were wearing jeans and a tee shirt instead of one of your suits," I offered, gesturing to his clothing, which was now almost as soaked as Lena's outfit was.

"That's true," he grinned back at me. "Lena let Annabelle take you to the bathroom so you can change into some of your new clothes." He gently pulled her arms and legs from around him and sat her on her feet.

"Can I wear my new princess undies?" she asked, looking up at me. Amazing, she forgets about being upset with Neal over princess underwear. How awesome is that?

"Yes, and that purple dress you just had to have," I nodded my head and winked at her before grabbing the clothes in question out of their respective shopping bags and shoved them in my purse before taking her hand in mine and heading off to the bathroom.

After getting her in dry clothes, and brushing out her tangled blonde hair, we headed back to where Neal was waiting. I quickly transferred the items of one bag into another so I could put her wet clothes in there without messing up the other stuff we had gotten for her. "Let's head back to June's so you can get changed to," I sighed and tried not to laugh at Neal.

He tried to grab his hat back off of my head as we walked, but I ducked from his reach. "Nope, it's mine now," I grinned wolfishly at him.

"I'll get it back eventually," he promised with a smirk.

"You can try."

Once we got back to June's, Lena and I stayed down in the sitting area on the first floor, while Neal went up to his room to change. "Lena, do you want to call and see how Mommy is feeling?" I asked her after checking my phone. Caroline had texted me, she was set up in a room for the night and they had officially begun treatment.

"Yeah," she agreed enthusiastically and hopped onto my lap.

I waited patiently through three rings before Caroline finally picked up. "Hey," she answered tiredly as I put the phone on speaker.

"Hi mommy!"

"Hey, Carrie, how are you feeling honey?" I asked, resting my chin on top of Lena's head.

"Oh, I'm so lonely without my little girl to keep me company," she replied to Lena's pleasure.

"Then come over," she answered her mother as if it were the most simple task ever. "We're at Miss June's house. She's a nice lady, and she has a cute puppy. You can come see him for yourself if you want to."

"Oh, I would love to sweetie, but I can't right now. Remember, I told you how I was really sick? Well my doctor wants me to sleep over tonight so he can make sure the medicine he is giving me I helping me get better. But I would love if you could tell me all about your day, that way I can pretend I was there."

Lena immediately set off into a tangent on our entire day, from the second Caroline dropped her off, up until right before we made the decision to call her. Caroline did a good job of making herself sound normal, but I could tell by the fatigue in her voice and the heaviness of her breath that she was in bad shape.

"Well, baby, it sounds like your day was just fabulous. I wish I could have been there to see all of it. But sweetie, I have to go now so my doctor can talk to me okay?"

"Okay Mommy, I love you," she chirped and blew a kiss at the phone.

"I love you too, baby, be good for Annabelle and Neal."

"I will," she promised.

"Bye, Caroline, we'll give you a call before bedtime," I told her, trying to keep the sadness from my voice.

"Bye, Annabelle," she replied before cutting off the call.

* * *

**So, how bout this update, eh? Definitely a lot of sad, but hopefully seeing Lena with Neal kept me from making you guys too depressed. And for those of you who already follow Belle on twitter know that Neal indeed did post that he would stop preventing(: Yay! Go Neal! And yes, I did make him his own, for those of you that aren't on twitter and didn't already know that. So if you don't want to talk to Belle, you can at least talk to Neal now. And if you are wondering, yes I did create and currently maintain both of their accounts. Cassidy's account is maintained by my consultant who was the inspiration for her. If you wish to follow Neal or Annabelle, their account information is posted on my profile. And if you don't have a twitter but would still like to follow them, I also have set up personal email accounts for them, which are also listed on my profile.**

**Anyways, I hope you guys like the update, and I can't wait to hear from you!**

**TTFN! ~TheRatPack**


	12. Changes

**Chapter Twelve: Changes**

"_I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life... I just go on from day to day, taking what comes."_

_~Frank Sinatra_

**Monday, October 11, 2010**

"Leddy-Bear, I love pajama day," I said to Ashley Ledford, another of teacher in the social studies department, as I joined her in the social studies office to grab my third cup of coffee for the day. "I think my goal for spirit week should just be optimal comfort."

"Amen to that," she agreed with a nod and gave me a high five. Pajama day has always been my favorite of all the spirit days. I can literally just get out of bed and go to work. The only changing I had done was pull a hoodie on over my tee shirt, and I came to work in flip flops mainly because I might get some odd looks walking around New York City in pink Hello Kitty slippers. "Oh and does he belong to you?" she asked and gestured towards the table in the middle of the room.

"What?" I asked and nearly jumped when I saw Neal sitting there smirking at me. "Oh, hey! Yes, he's mine," I giggled at Ashley before going over to kiss Neal. "I thought you were going to meet me in my classroom?"

"I went there, but you were MIA, so I asked her, and she told me you'd probably come in here before you went back to your room," he explained and pulled me into his lap. "Nice pajamas, by the way." His eyes glittered as he tugged slightly on my purple and gray plaid pants, which I had paired with a black tank top and purple v-neck hoodie.

"Yeah, but you know the slippers are totally the best," I laughed and held up my foot so he could see.

"Oh, indisputably," he agreed in mock seriousness.

"Come on," I sighed and stood when the bell rang. "You get to sit through my seventh period, then we can head back to my apartment." I waited for Ashley to walk out, leaving us alone, before I continued. "Cassidy has a shift down at the coffee shop and then she is meeting someone for dinner, so we have a few hours to ourselves."

"Those are always the best few hours," he said into my ear as we walked into the hallway and kissed my cheek before just grabbing my hand and walking by my side as I led the way to my room.

"Hey guys," I greeted my seventh period class. "Guys, this is my boyfriend Neal Caffrey, Neal this is my seventh period AP Euro class. He's gonna hang out with us today."

"Awh, you look so cute together," Nicole gushed and grinned at the two of us, making Neal smirk as I blushed brightly.

"Thanks Nicole," I giggled slightly. "Babe, you can sit wherever there is an open seat." Naturally, he went and pulled a chair up so it was next to my desk.

"Ms. B, what are we doing today?" Mike asked, holding his head up as he looked at me tiredly.

"Well, since this class is so much more well behaved than the fourth period class, you guys are ahead, so I figured you could just use the time to get ahead on next weeks notes or whatever it is you want to do," I shrugged.

"Is your fourth period really that bad?" Sophia asked, raising her eyebrows at me.

"Oh my god, they are seriously the worst class I have this year. They were giving me such a headache when we tried to finish the discussion on Oliver Cromwell—you know the one this class finished on Thursday last week. It was ridiculous," I started to slip into bitching mode and sat on the edge of my table at the front of the room.

"Isn't Gub in that class?" Sonya spoke up, wrinkling her nose.

"Andrew Gubernick? Yeah," I confirmed, an identical look of distaste crossing my face. "Like, he has his moments where he can be really funny and what not, but most of the time he is just rude and disruptive, and it gives me a migraine. And don't even get me started on Aaron Somers. He's just a bad, if not worse."

Neal shook his head and smiled, trying not to laugh at us I presumed. "Yes, if your wondering babe, this is what we do in this class. It's like our little group therapy/gossip session," I told him with a laugh. "But at least this class is a small enough group that we can get ourselves back to where we needed to be. There are so many really intelligent kids in the other class, and I feel so bad that they have to put up with all the nonsense."

"You should just split up the two classes," McKenna suggested. "Like put all the good kids in this class, and put all the obnoxious kids in the other class."

"That sounds good in theory," I told her. "However, if I had just those guys and no one to balance them out for the full fifty minutes, I'm afraid I'd shoot myself before that period even ended."

"Good point," she nodded.

"Ms. B, did you go to the dances at your school?" Morgan, one of the more shy students in the class, spoke up, temporarily looking away from the novel she had clutched in her lap.

"No, unfortunately I didn't have anyone to go with," I admitted with a shrug. "I wish I had though."

"Why didn't you just go with a friend or something?" Nicole asked, leaning forward with interest.

"You guys have to understand that I was the only fifteen year old in my graduating class. The only friends I had to speak of where my brother, and at the time she was his girlfriend, but yeah it was just Peter and Elizabeth. And both of them were out of college and working. They couldn't exactly go to high school dances with me."

"Awh, I would've gone with you, Ms. B," Sonya said, and the other students expressed similar opinions.

"What year did you graduate?" Mike asked.

"I was class of 1999," I told them.

"Wow, I was only like five then," Sophia chuckled.

"Oh my god, leave. You're making me feel old," I whined and brought my knees up to my chest. Yeah, wearing PJs to work is way better than dresses and skirts.

"How old are you?" Timmy inquired, making a poor attempt at disguising his cell phone behind his binder.

"I'm twenty six, twenty seven in December," I replied.

"You're not old, Ms. B," Sonya chuckled and jokingly smacked Sophia's arm.

"Thank you Sonya," I laughed.

"Do we have to take notes on all of chapter 15?" Morgan spoke up again as she pulled out her planner.

"Oh, no, thank you for bringing that up actually. I was going to say something about that before I went off on my little tangent," I smiled at her gratefully and hopped off of the table. "You guys only have to take notes on pages . . ." I trailed off as I referenced the text book. "Pages 436 to 445. I want you to start with the section 'Revolts in France and Spain and then you just keep going until the chapter ends on 445."

"Let's call the due date . . . the twenty-second," I continued to narrate as I wrote the assignment up on the board. It wasn't long before we went back into chatting mode and then before I knew it, it was 2:15 and the bell was ringing. "Alright, I'll see you guys tomorrow! Don't forget it's clash day," I reminded them in a sing song voice.

"I can't wait to see what you wear for that," Neal chuckled at me and stood, pulling me into his arms as the last few students filtered out.

"I don't even know yet what I'll be wearing for that," I replied with a laugh of my own. "Come on, birthday boy, let's get out of here."

"Impatient," he teased me as I grabbed my purse and dragged him out into the hallway after locking up the room.

"Shut up," I giggled and blushed slightly.

I pretended to doze as I lay wrapped in Neal's arms, but really I was carefully watching my clock through barely opened eyes. Once it got close to the time where we would both have just enough time, I turned slightly so my face was buried in his chest and expertly played my part. After a few more moments of "sleep" I jumped up, asking wide eyed what time it was.

He glanced at the clock over my shoulder. "It's almost five, why?" he asked, looking at me like I was crazy.

"Damn, I forgot I told Elle I would watch Chase while she and Peter went out," I cursed as if I were legitimately in a hurried panic as I jumped from bed and began yanking on underwear and a bra. "You can come and help me if you want," I told him, using the tone that always meant he had to do whatever it was, no argument needed.

"Yes ma'am," he saluted me with a smirk before he started putting his own clothes back on. "You look pretty nice for someone getting ready to babysit an infant," he commented when he took in my black dress with blue, purple, and green vine-like swirls. His eyebrows probably would have left his head if they could when he continued his once over and saw that I was actually wearing high heels. And I mean _high_ heels. Like a two and a half inch high heel.

"Who said I'm wearing this for him?" I winked at him as I smoothed down the satiny garment that hit about mid-thigh.

"Flirt," he grinned and kissed me softly, looking down at me for a moment before I broke the stare and declared it was time to leave.

"Okay, what's really going on?" he asked, getting suspicious when we approached their house thirty minutes later and it was dead quiet. Normally you could hear either Chase crying or some sports game on the TV.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" I smirked devilishly before flinging the door open, revealing the large group of people hidden inside.

His jaw dropped as the chorus of surprise roared out at him. "Happy birthday," I giggled and grabbed his hand, pulling him inside.

He laughed and shook his head slightly as various agents from the Bureau, Caroline, Lena, Cassidy, June, and of course Elizabeth and Peter, all took turns wishing him a happy 33rd. I had even managed, with the help of Cassidy, managed to convince Mozzie to come to the shindig. Yes, I legitimately use that word.

"We so got you," Cassidy teased him and gave me a high five once everyone kind of began doing their own thing again.

"And you said I couldn't keep anything from you," I stuck my tongue out at him like the mature adult I am.

"Yes, you won," he admitted and kissed the top of my head as I did a little victory dance.

"Happy birthday Neal!" Lena exclaimed excitedly as she skipped over to us.

"Thank you, babe," he grinned at her and scooped her up, knowing that she would probably want to be picked up as usual.

"Can I asks you somefing? She asked, struggling over that 'th' sound.

"Anything," he confirmed.

"Will you and Annabelle take me twick or tweating?" she asked, looking back and forth between me and Neal with hopeful big blue eyes.

"We would love to take you trick or treating," I answered, unable to stop my smile.

"How about we take you to get a costume on Thursday?" he asked, looking to Caroline for permission as she approached us.

"I think that sounds fabulous," Caroline smiled widely and rubbed Lena back softly. "Thank you," she mouthed to me, still smiling even as her eyes glittered sullenly. She had asked me before if we could take Lena again Thursday while she went in for her next round of chemo. But at least this time she would get to come home afterwards. I just grinned back at her and nodded my head once.

As Neal continued to entertain Lena, I went over to bug my brother, who had Chase half asleep on his shoulder, carefully cradling his head and body with one arm while he held onto his drink with the other. "Hey bro," I greeted him with a smile and gently tickled Chase's side with my fingertips. "How goes being a Daddy?"

"I'm tired, but it's worth it," he grinned down at the little boy before looking back at me.

"So when are you back at work?" I asked, discreetly gauging how long Neal would have off if I were to have a baby anytime soon. Wow, I really am obsessed.

"November first," he answered.

I was about to further the conversation when Elizabeth announced that it was time for cake and presents. I waited patiently as everyone ate—I was pretty sure one of my students had gotten me sick since I had been nauseous for the past few days so I refused my own piece—for Neal to start on presents.

Thankfully, for a thirty-three year old man opening presents was a fairly short affair. He had gotten a new book of Poe's short stories and poetry from Elle and Peter, June had gotten him a new black suit—replacing the one destroyed by my blood back in May, Mozzie got him a bottle of wine, and then it finally got down so only the gifts from Cassidy and myself remained.

He looked taken aback when Cassidy handed over two boxes, one wrapped in blue and the other in black. "Open the blue one first," she instructed and we shared a mischievous look before turning to watch him.

"Okay . . ." he looked at her strangely before tearing at the paper. He, along with the rest of the room, burst out laughing when he pulled off the lid to reveal a leopard print fedora. "Nice Cass," he chuckled and stuck it on his head to humor her.

"Alright, the other one is your legit present, I assume Belle will want to keep that one," she said and gestured at the leopard hat.

"Hell yeah, I will," I exclaimed and snatched it off his head, placing it on my own.

"Thank you," he told her and leaned across me to the other side of the couch so he could hug her when he opened the second box and found his new black pinstriped fedora and a gray and black horizontally striped tie.

"My turn," I announced, nearly giddy as I grabbed my gift to him off of the coffee table and handed it to him. It was fairly easy just by the shape of it to guess what it was, but the item itself wasn't the important part.

He looked at me in confusion when he first pulled the paper off the record, but then he took a closer look and his eyes widened. "This is legit?" he asked, staring at me in complete shock.

"You're the forger in the relationship, not me," I teased him, enjoying every second as the excitement grew on his face. "Besides, to forge Dean Martin's signature, wouldn't I need an original to base it off of?"

"This is amazing," he stated plainly before hugging me tightly, I could almost feel Peter rolling his eyes behind my back, but I didn't care. Point is I had managed to get my hands on an original copy of Dean Martin's LP _This Time I'm Swingin'! _A copywhich had been autographed by Dino himself. Oh yeah, this was a good day.

**Thursday, October 14, 2010**

"I don't wanna be Dorothy anymore," Lena announced in the middle of the costume store as she browsed the children's isle, traveling a few feet ahead of me, Neal, and Elizabeth who was pushing the stroller attempting to choose between the dinosaur and Chewbacca costumes in the infant section of the isle. My vote went to dinosaur. While I am a bit of a space nerd, I still thought the dinosaur costume would look way cuter on my little man.

"What do you want to be?" I asked, forcing back my urge to throw up as I allowed her to lead me further down the isle. Yesterday the nausea had evolved into actual vomiting and I had called out of work today. Thankfully, schools were closed tomorrow. I honestly wasn't feeling any better, but I had lied well enough to get Neal and Cassidy to let me still come on our little shopping excursion.

"I wanna be Alice," she told me decisively and pointed to the costume she had stopped in front of.

"Alright, you can be Alice. But no more changing after today. Deal?" I asked, offering my hand out to her. Caroline had taught her the other day what a handshake meant, and now it was the only way to get the girl to keep a promise.

"Deal," she nodded and smiled at me before shaking my hand.

"Alright," I grabbed the size designated for her age range and looked over at my shoulder at our shopping companions. "I'm going to go take her to try this one on," I told them before taking her back to the dressing room. "Oh, you look so pretty," I praised her after helping her into the blue dress and putting the bow in her hair at he insistence.

"Can we go show Neal?" she asked, holding her arms out to be picked up.

"Of course we can," I grinned and swiftly moved to prop her up on my hip. "Oh, Neal, there is a beautiful young lady here who would like to see you," I called out as I returned to where I left them.

"Who is this gorgeous girl?" he asked and leaned down to kiss Lena's cheek.

"You know who I am, silly," Lena giggled at him and blushed.

"What? You can't be my Lena! You're Alice," he continued to tease her. "I'm just kidding, I know it's you. And you look absolutely stunning," he winked at her.

"Come on sweetie, let's go get your regular clothes back on," I laughed in spite of the vomit taste coming up my throat and led her back to the dressing room where I had left her clothes.

Total time in the store was about an hour before we all found our costumes. Chase was going to be the dinosaur, Elle was dressing up as a flapper, Lena, of course, was Alice, Neal was going to dress as a cop, and I was going as a space girl. Afterwards Neal and I swung down to Queens and dropped Lena off at home once it was confirmed that Caroline had returned, and then we returned to Peter and Elle's for dinner. I could barely bring myself to eat the grilled chicken, although it was fabulous. But I just felt like anything that went down would just come back up in a matter of minutes.

"Anna, can you help me clean up?" Elle asked as everyone else finished.

"Sure," I replied as Neal and Peter went to watch TV and entertain Chase.

I barely had time to grab the plates from the table before she was yanking me into the kitchen. "Ouch what?" I asked, setting the plates on the counter and rubbing my wrist where she had grabbed me.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked eyeing me suspiciously.

"Nothing, I just caught something from one of my students. I'll be fine in a few days," I defended, shrinking under her gaze. She definitely had the mom glares down for when Chase hit his adolescence.

"Are you sure it isn't something else?" she pressed, glancing down at my stomach and then at a picture of Chase that was stuck to the fridge by a magnet.

"I . . ." I started to deny it, then realized that she might be right. A little over a month ago I had spent about a week with Neal and had forgotten to pack my birth control. It had slipped my mind when I didn't notice anything within that first month and then had totally forgotten in the past two weeks. "I don't know," I finally sighed.

"Let me call my doctor. You don't have a GYN here do you? I'm sure she can find a slot for you sometime tomorrow," Elle went on.

I zoned out while Elizabeth spoke to her doctor in hushed tones so Neal and Peter wouldn't overhear. Could I really be pregnant? Neal and I had just decided over the weekend to stop preventing. Was it possible that it had already happened before the decision was even made?

"Alright," she snapped me back from outer space. "You have an appointment for nine a.m. tomorrow. Do you want me to go with you?"

"Uhm, yeah, if you want. Do you think I should tell Neal before or after the appointment?" I asked, twisting my hands nervously.

"I'd say after just to be on the safe side," she told me. "No need getting anyone all excited and worked up if it turns out to be nothing. It's bad enough the two of us will be worrying over it now. And I' rather only give Peter a heart attack if absolutely necessary," she finished with a laugh.

"This is a fact," I agreed and helped her finish up the dishes before heading out to the living room where the boys were waiting.

We hung around until about ten thirty before we finally decided to head back to his apartment. He was unusually quiet on the walk back to June's, and with how weird Cassidy's earlier tweets had been—she was getting all excited over "nothing"—it was making me very suspicious. "Are you okay babe?" I asked as I took my coat off as we got back inside. "What . . . what are you doing?" I gasped as I turned to find him kneeling in front of me, on one knee—the way I had seen it done in countless films.

"Annabelle, you know I love you. I've loved you more than anything for more than a year now, even though I hadn't always known it. Even though I fought you on it at first, I can't wait to start a family with you. And if we're in this for the long haul, I want to do it right. Annabelle, will you marry me?" he finally asked, grabbing my hand in his.

I couldn't think of any words or phrases strong enough to convey how I felt. All I could do was try not to cry as I nodded vigorously before tackling him and pressing my lips hard to his. "That is such a stupid question, of course I'll marry you," I choked out a laugh as my eyes began streaming as I lay next to him on the floor.

"Good, because I actually paid for this," he half joked and pulled a small box from his pocket. I tried to hold back a fresh wave of tears as he slipped a simple diamond engagement ring onto my finger. It had a reasonably sized circular diamond in the middle with smaller ones stuck into the band wrapping halfway around the ring. It was simple and delicate and exactly what I had always wanted. It was absolutely beautiful.

I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and kissed him passionately. "I love you," I mumbled into the kiss.

"I love you too," he responded, sounding just as distracted as me, if not more.

**Friday, October 15, 2010**

I slipped out of Neal's bed at around eight the next morning. I took as fast and silent a shower as I could manage before throwing on one of his plain white tee shirts and a pair of jeans I had left here a while back. I wrote him a quick note, giving him a summarized version of what I would be doing. All he would know when he woke up was that I had a doctors appointment and I'd be back later. By eight-thirty I was out the door and on my way to meet one Dr. Casey Mitchell.

"You must be Annabelle, Dr. Mitchell is waiting for you in her office," the secretary said as soon as I walked in. I kinda wish I had listened when Elle called last night.

"Okay," I grinned nervously and walked through the door with her name printed on it. 'Uhm, hi," I half mumbled as I walked in to find the older woman seated behind her desk.

"Hello, Annabelle, I'm Dr. Mitchell. So, Elizabeth tells me that you might be pregnant?" she inquired with a hint of a smile.

"Yeah," I nodded, my mouth felt like cotton and the nausea was coming back with a vengeance.

"Alright, from the looks of you, you'd be fairly early on, so we'll just do a blood test first, then if it's positive we can try for an ultrasound. Sound like a plan?" I just nodded and flashed a weak smile. "It's okay to be nervous Annabelle. Parenthood can be a scary thing," she told me sympathetically as she led me to an exam room and prepped a syringe.

I looked away as she drew my blood, the last thing I needed to do was simultaneously vomit and pass out. That would not be good. She exited a few moments later with a vial of my blood after putting a band aid on the new wound so she could go run the test. While she was gone, Elle was let in by the secretary. "Hey, sweetie," she grinned and pulled me into a hug. "What's happened so far?"

"I'm about to vomit, and she drew blood," I told her after swallowing back bile. "I'd prefer my period to vomiting any day," I whined. "As much as I would love to have a baby, this just sucks."

"Whoa, what's this?" she asked, snatching my left hand from my lap.

Immediately I forgot my woes and a cheesy grin ate my face. "Neal proposed last night," I gushed and allowed her to pull me into a bone crushing hug.

"Neal is also going to be a father," Dr. Mitchell interrupted as she reentered. "Congratulations, Miss Burke, you are going to be a mother!"

* * *

**Wishes granted! A wedding and a baby! Be honest, how much do you love me? Haha but seriously, I couldn't have done it with out all of you guys. I seriously have the best readers on this whole website and I don't know what would've become of Annabelle had you guys not discovered her. And I also owe a ton and a half to my fabulous story consultant CassidyCaffrey(gee, I wonder why that sounds familiar lol). She is amazing! **

**And I also want to say thank you to all who have made the twitter accounts as successful as they have been. Both Belle and Neal love being able to talk to you guys. And I hope you all have enjoyed hearing personally from them. For those of you who have not joined twitter or have chosen not to email them, you are seriously missing out! They have posted pictures of them in younger years, pictures of the Halloween costumes mentioned in this chapter, pictures of Chase. And soon there will be pictures of the engagement ring, and, most importantly, the progress of Baby Caffrey! You don't have to be on twitter to see them either. I have both Neal and Annabelle's emails listed on my profile. If you don't dig the whole Twitter scene, feel free to email them. You can ask to see pictures, or even just to chat with them!**

**Anyways, you guys are all just super great! And I just want to let you know how awesome you are (:**

**Until next time, much love,**

**~TheRatPack**


	13. Ch 12b: Baby Caffrey

**Chapter Twelve Part Two: Baby Caffrey**

_"Annabelle, you know I love you. I've loved you more than anything for more than a year now, even though I hadn't always known it. Even though I fought you on it at first, I can't wait to start a family with you. And if we're in this for the long haul, I want to do it right. Annabelle, will you marry me?"  
~Neal Caffrey, Stolen Sweets: Chapter 12(part one)_

**Friday, October 15, 2010**

"So how are you going to tell Neal?" Elizabeth asked as we walked out of Dr. Mitchell's office.

"I'm working on it," I replied distractedly, the wheels in my head grinding away as they had been as soon as the doctor confirmed that I was pregnant. "But I need to go buy something for it. You can come if you want . . . although you have to get back to the little man don't you?"

"Yeah, sorry sweetie. Maybe you can call Cass," she suggested.

"I would but she has to work later, so I'll let her sleep in. Besides, I want Neal to be the first one to know after us."

"Alright, well I guess I'll see you later. I picked up the new Just Dance the other day, maybe you and Neal can come over and play. Get Peter in a good mood before you tell him . . ." she hinted at me before getting into her car which was parallel parked in front of the building. How she ever managed to snatch that spot in this city I will never know.

I waved at her as she pulled away before turning and heading towards where Scott Cook lived. Needless to say, he looked exhausted and confused when he found me knocking on his apartment door at ten-thirty on our day off.

"Annabelle, what are you doing here?" he yawned and leaned heavily on the door frame.

"Can I ask you a favor?"I asked hopefully.

"Yeah, sure come in," he nodded and moved aside so I could get through. "What's up?" he asked as we sat across from each other at his kitchen table.

"Your girlfriend works at that custom tee shirt place down the block, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, she's there opening up now. Why d'you ask?"

"Because, I need something for Neal," I replied vaguely. "Do you think if you called her and I emailed her a picture, she could have something made and ready by the time I got there?"

"More than likely. What do you need something right away for?" he asked as he grabbed his cell phone from where it was charging on the kitchen counter.

"I'll tell you on Monday, okay? Thanks!" I grinned excitedly and jumped up to leave, simultaneously putting together an email to send to Emma.

_Could you put this pic on a newborn size onesie for me? Thanks! _I typed out quickly and attached a picture of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr. before sending it and heading out of the apartment complex and towards the tee shirt shop.

_We'll need a car . . . and a new apartment,_ I thought idly as I walked down the street and saw a father buckling his child into a car seat. It was a strange feeling, imagining myself and Neal doing that in thirty-four short weeks. I was halfway there when my phone beeped once, letting me know I had a new email.

_Alright, I've got it for you girl(: Just give me like 10-15 minutes and you can come pick it up,_ was Emma's reply to me. I grinned to myself and continued walking, entering the McDonalds two buildings away from the store. Normally, I detested any and all fast food, but I wanted a cheeseburger and didn't feel like walking any further than I had to.

I ordered one double cheeseburger with just ketchup to eat while I waited and a second one to take back to June's with me, and a small order of fries accompanying each one. I ignored the nausea still attacking my insides and ate the burger and packet of fries in record time, but since they were busy ordering had taken a while so by the time I was finished I had gotten a second email from Emma letting me know the onesie was ready.

"Here it is," she announced and pushed the folded up outfit across the counter towards me. I sat my McDonalds bag on the counter so I could pick the onesie up with both hands. "I added a little something for you," she added with a smirk as she watched my entire face light up.

"Oh my god, Emma this is beyond perfect!" I exclaimed as I examined it. Along with the picture, she had also added the phrase "Rat Pack Baby" underneath. "I can't thank you enough, I absolutely love this!" And I knew Neal would love it too. I couldn't stop smiling as I folded it back up and stuck it in my bag. "How much do I owe you for it? The usual price is twenty, right?"

"For you, it's fifteen," she replied with a wink and rung it up.

"Emma, you are an amazing woman. Scott Cook is one lucky guy," I gushed as I handed over a five and a ten, plus change to cover taxes.

"I tell him that same thing everyday," she joked. "I'll see you later, Annabelle."

"See ya," I waved and grabbed my heart attack in a bag before bounding out of the store and backtracking back to June's. "Hey, June, is Neal still here?" I asked her as soon as I walked in and spotted her in the front hall.

"Yes, he's right upstairs," she smiled at me. "Having a good day?"

"Extremely," I smiled and bit my lip, resisting my urge to blurt out the news right there. Neal needed to know first, then we could tell other people. Although something about the knowing smile she gave me in return told me she had already started to suspect something.

I skipped over every other step in my hurry to reach Neal and nearly slammed right through the door when I forgot to turn the door knob. "Ow," I groaned and rubbed my forehead as I staggered back. Wow, I'm clumsy when I'm excited.

"Are you okay?" Neal laughed and tried not to laugh at me.

"Yeah, I'll just have a giant bruise there later," I chuckled slightly. "So I bought something . . . and I'm not talking about the McDonalds," I grinned sheepishly when I sat the bag on the table and pulled out my second burger.

I was already my second bite in when he asked, "What'd you get?"

"Here," I replied with my mouth still half full and handed him my purse. I swallowed before continuing. "It should be in there somewhere. You might have to dig for it because my purse eats things."

He nodded to himself, gave me a weird look as I took another giant bite of the burger, and then started looking inside my bag. I watched him carefully as I finished the burger—I couldn't believe how small it was, or maybe I was just extra hungry—and started in on the fries. As soon as I saw him grab the white onesie I swallowed what was in my mouth and dropped the two fries in my hand, wiping the salt off my fingers with my napkin as I gauged his reaction. As soon as it was unfolded and he took a look at it he looked back up at me as he contemplated my obvious descent into insanity.

"This is cute, but why did you buy it? You know Peter would never allow you to put his son in a Rat Pack onesie."

"It isn't for _his_ baby . . ." I trailed off and gave him a pointed look, hoping he would catch on.

He sat up straighter and sat the onesie down on top of my purse. "Belle, what do you mean?"

This is where my favorite part of the plan came in. I stood and grabbed his hand, pulling him over to where we had stood together just last night before getting down on one knee in front of him. I held one of his hands in my right, and let my left rest over my lower belly. "Neal, you yourself said last night that we've been in love for over a year, even when neither of us had even known it. We know we want a family, and you also said you couldn't wait for us to start. So, I figured I should let you know that you don't have to wait. Neal Caffrey, would you mind if Baby Caffrey wore that onesie home from the hospital when he or she gets here in thirty-four weeks?" I tried not to giggle or cry when I watched realization dawn on him followed by one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen on his face.

"You're pregnant?" he asked as he pulled me up to my feet.

"Six weeks, according to the doctor I went to this morning," I grinned and hugged him tightly. He buried his face in my hair and lifted me off the ground.

"Talk about good timing," he laughed and pressed his lips to my neck. "But what about Peter?" he asked nervously a moment later and sat me back down so he could look at me. "He doesn't even like us dating. How is he going to react when he finds out you're pregnant and we're engaged?"

"I don't know," I said with a sharp intake of breath. I hadn't even thought of telling my brother all of this. As if the situation with him and Neal weren't already fragile. Yes, they were friends, but Peter was also very quick to believe it when it was suggested that Neal might be turning against him. And that is almost definitely how he would interpret this. "Uhm, well Elle invited us to drop by later. Why don't we tell him about the engagement tonight, then give it a few more weeks before we tell them about the baby."

He still looked just as worried but nodded in agreement. "So when are we going over?"

"I don't know, she didn't give a time, but sometime after lunch would probably be best," I shrugged and chipped away at the orange nail polish I had just put on yesterday.

"So where did you find this?" he asked, returning the focus of the conversation to the Rat Pack onesie.

"Scott's girlfriend Emma made it for me after my appointment," I replied.

"How long did it take you to plan this?"

"Between the time Dr. Mitchell told me I was pregnant and when I knocked on Scott's door to ask him to call Emma and let her know I would be on my way," I admitted with a laugh. "It's that AP thinking popping up again."

"Obviously," he replied, looking impressed as he raised his eyebrows at me. It's so weird, every time he looks at me it looks like he is either concerned for my mental health, or like he's in awe or something. I understand him thinking I'm crazy, but I have no idea why he would ever be in awe of me. It's not like I ever do anything terribly impressive.

"I'll be right back," I said in a rush when the nausea returned with a vengeance. But instead of staying out in the dining/living room and waiting for me like I had expected, he followed me into the bathroom and held my hair back as the fast food came back for an encore. "Sorry," I sniffed and wiped my eyes and mouth with the back of my hand when I began to cry lightly. Even though I had done it more than ever before in the past few days, throwing up still made my cry every time I did it.

"Hey," he used his thumb to wipe at the tears that were still flowing. "Don't be sorry, Belle. Come on, why don't you just brush your teeth, then we can head over to Peter's."

Feeling ridiculous, I just laughed slightly at myself and accepted my toothbrush when he handed it to me. I brushed my teeth far longer than normally necessary and wiped off my destroyed make-up, not bothering to reapply it, before going back out and joining Neal.

"Ready?" I just nodded in response and grabbed my purse and the still half full serving of fries. I made sure to leave the onesie behind and took the sonogram print out of my wallet so that there would be no chance of Peter seeing them. I felt so sneaky, and it made me feel sick again.

I stayed close to Neal's side with my head leaning on his shoulder as we slowly made our way to Peter and Elizabeth's. The closer we got the more nervous I became and I was very tempted to turn around and run back to June's.

"Come on, Belle," he urged me quietly when we were right in front of their house. He had to pull me slightly before I started heading up towards their front door.

"Hey guys," Peter greeted us when he pulled the door open after Neal knocked once. "Elle told me you might be coming over."

"Haha yeah," I replied quickly. Too quickly seeing as Peter looked at me like he didn't even know who I was.

"Right . . ." he trailed off and shook his head at me. "Anyways, she is upstairs changing Chase; she'll be down in a minute."

"Relax, Belle," Neal whispered in my ear when Peter turned to walk to the TV and turned on a football game. Trying to revert to my pre-engaged-mother-to-be self I rolled my eyes at him but went to sit next to him anyway, being careful to tuck my left hand under my leg.

"Can't you put something else on?" I whined like I would back in the day. Why did it feel like those times were so long ago?

"This is an important game," he defended and pushed my shoulder slightly.

"You think every game is important. And we're making you change it later anyways because Elle and I want to play Just Dance 2."

"Well until then, you get to watch them game with me," he replied and moved the remote to where I couldn't reach it and put an arm around my shoulders so I couldn't get up and grab it. I tried stretching for it at first but eventually huffed and gave up. He was stronger than me and I didn't have a chance. Okay, I must really be spending too much time with Neal if I can lie to my brother this easily. Immediately I felt guilty again and pretended to watch the game so he wouldn't see the discomfort on my face.

"Alright, Chase is officially sleeping again," Elle announced as she made her way downstairs and placed the baby monitor on the coffee table. "Which means you need to look up the score online later, because we're playing with the Wii now."

"Fine," he gave in to her almost immediately and changed the input on the TV as Elle turned the game console on and handed out the four remotes. She was player one, Peter was two, I was three, and Neal was four. She explained that this was so the pairings wouldn't be awkward on the duets. How weird would it be if Peter and Neal had to dance together during Sway? Elle and I would think it was funny, but I'm not sure that they would. Especially not Peter.

"I think it's safe to say none of us have any idea what we are doing," I giggled when we all epically failed at the third song we did, Tik Tok by Ke$ha.

"No, not at all," Neal agreed and kissed the top of my head. Surprisingly Peter didn't roll his eyes or anything, but instead just laughed and nodded. Elizabeth gave Neal and me a look. It was time to tell him.

"Are you guys hungry?" Elle asked, obviously trying to give us time alone with Peter.

"Sure," I lied. But food was the last thing on my mind at the moment.

"Alright, I'll go take a look at what we have," she replied and escaped to the kitchen.

With shaking hands I loosened the wrist strap on my controller and sat it back on the charger, Neal copying my actions only seconds after me. I had a feeling we wouldn't be playing anymore today. I was secretly hoping for a mood swing to hit at some point, I at least want to be able to stand up for myself when he flips shit.

"Peter, we need to talk to you about something," I started hesitantly.

"What?" he asked, somewhat warily once he saw the expression on my face. I glanced over at Neal, and as usual he had somehow managed to stay completely cool. That helped a little, knowing he wasn't totally freaking like I was.

I tried to answer him but stuttered nervously and ended up just looking desperately at Neal. He squeezed my side gently and looked stone-faced at Peter. "Peter, Annabelle and I are getting married," he stated plainly.

"What?" His face immediately grew dark and he angrily sat his own controller on the coffee table. He brought his volume back down to a conversational level when he saw the baby monitor sitting there. "No, no, no. _You_ are not marrying _my_ sister."

Here came the mood swing I had been praying for. "What are you going to do? Arrest him?" I crossed my arms over my chest and raised my eyebrows at him. "Good luck explaining why when people ask you."

He looked taken aback by my boldness, but pushed on regardless. "Annabelle you can't marry him! He's a criminal, do you understand that?"

"I think you've made that abundantly clear over the past six years. Do you understand that I don't care? Because whether you want to believe it or not he has changed, for the most part. He's not perfect, I know that, but he's a hell of a lot better than some of the other choices in this city. And I love him, Peter. And he loves me too," I said all of this quickly, because as angry as I was this was still making me very nervous.

"You two can't get married," he repeated, looking un-phased by my argument.

"Why don't you try giving us a good reason now?" Neal retorted, finally starting to sound angry.

"Because I don't want her getting so tied up in you that she ends up like Kate!" Peter finally blew. I could feel the tension increase as a dead silence fell over the three of us. Neal silently removed himself from my side and turned and walked back outside.

"You went too far this time Peter," I told him, barely above a whisper as I began to cry again. "Call me when you can be civil again. Oh and by the way, Kate probably would still be alive if you hadn't arrested him. He would've been there to protect her and Fowler never would've gotten a hold of her," I added the last part out of spite before turning and running out after Neal.

"He's right," Neal sighed and ran a hand through his hair when I caught up to him at the end of the block.

"No he's not, Neal. Don't let him get to you," I insisted and twined my fingers with his.

"Yes, he is, Annabelle. Someone like me makes a lot of enemies. When it was just me on my own, only occasionally contacting Moz or Alex, I didn't worry too much about it. When I started seeing Kate, I didn't think to start worrying about it. But now that someone's gone after Kate, I keep thinking about who they're going to go after next. Now I have to worry about someone targeting you, Cassie, Lena, and soon enough the baby. I can't stand the thought of putting you in danger."

"And you think listening to Peter and not marrying me will keep that from happening?" His silence was enough to confirm that. "Neal, if anyone is going to target us, leaving won't keep them from doing so. If anything, you will just feel even worse if it ever does happen." I made him stop walking and look me in the face. "Would you rather stay and say you at least made the effort to protect us? Or you can always leave and know that you might've been able to stop it? Like it or not, the ties are permanent now. We're potential targets whether you stay or not. The only thing you are effecting as far as this goes is how many people they will have to sneak past in order to get to us."

He looked like he might argue for a moment, but sighed and pulled me in for a hug. "You're right, I'm sorry."

"You should be," I mumbled into his chest, starting to cry all over again. "If I ever have to talk you out of leaving us again, I'm just going to kill you," I half laughed half sobbed.

* * *

**There you have the second half of chapter 12. This was originally going to become another spin off one shot, but as I continued to write it slowly evolved into a continuation of the last post, so I figured I may as well just post it as 12b. Anyways, I hope you liked this one. And for anyone curious there is a picture of the Rat Pack onesie on Annabelle's Twitter account.**

**Thanks for reading guys!**

**~TheRatPack**


	14. Chapter 13: The Fight

**Chapter Thirteen: The Fight**

Everyone knows that if you've got a brother, you're going to fight.  
~Liam Gallagher

**Saturday, October 23, 2010**

**Neal's Point of View**

"What are you doing up?" I asked Belle and kissed her lightly as I walked out of the bathroom after showering and changing. Peter had sent me a text at six in the morning to meet him at the office. Apparently he was talking to us again and he wanted to get some paperwork out of the way so he could get right back to work when he came back in November.

"I can't sleep alone anymore," she admitted looking slightly embarrassed as she tugged on the end of the tee shirt she had worn to bed. "Where are you going anyway?" she asked through a yawn as she moved past me to get to the kitchen and started making herself a bowl of cereal.

"Peter wants me down at the office," answered and poured myself a cup of the Italian roast.

She stared at the coffee jealously for a moment before she shook herself out of it. "Since when is he talking to us again?"

"Since six when he sent me the text," I shrugged and sat across from her, drinking my coffee while she started eating.

"Oh, before I forget, Dr. Mitchell called me last night. She wanted to go ahead and set up some appointments so we could start to get into a regular four week routine with it. I have an eight week appointment on the twenty-sixth, which is a Thursday, and I have a twelve week appointment on November twenty-sixth which is a Friday."

I just nodded when she went on to ask if I would go with her. I was more than happy she was pregnant, but I still wasn't exactly used to the idea. And, let's not forget, I only have a two mile radius. It would be hard enough raising a kid when I can't even go to certain parts of the city. God help me if Peter has them shorten the radius when he finds out. I'm surprised he didn't make that move when he found out we were getting married.

Although, it had been a little easier to get used to it since the baby already had a nick name. Last week Belle had shown Lena the sonogram, and Lena said the baby looked like a chicken nugget. Ever since, all who knew Belle was pregnant have been referring to the baby as Nugget. Yes, even me and Mozzie. Although even though this pregnancy might cause a falling out with her brother, she had at least gained, to an extent, Mozzie's approval. Now he would stay in a room when she entered and he would even talk to her a little. It was a step in the right direction.

"I've gotta go," I told her, after waiting for her to finish her breakfast. "Do you want to meet for lunch later? I might be able to convince Peter to come," I offered. Whether she liked to admit it or not, she missed him.

"Okay," she grinned, now more alert, and stood to kiss me goodbye. "Should I just meet you at the Bureau at around noon?"

"That sounds perfect," I replied and kissed her again before flipping my hat onto my head and heading out of the door. We had bought our first car together on Sunday, but I went past it. My destination, after all, was less than two miles away (as most of them had to be), and Belle may need it at some point in the day.

"Morning Neal," Peter greeted me uncomfortably when I walked into his office.

"Peter," I nodded once at him and sat my hat on the desk before taking my usual seat in front of him.

"So . . . I may have . . . overreacted last Friday," he started hesitantly, unable to look me in the eye.

"You're in trouble with Elizabeth," I observed immediately. Annabelle was just as stubborn as he was, and they would have to be getting a lot of hell from a third party in order to stop holding a grudge against someone.

"Yeah. I am sorry though. I'm still not happy about the situation, but I did go way too far. But don't tell me you haven't had the same thing cross your mind."

"I have, more often than you'd think. But," I began to unconsciously paraphrase what Belle had said last week, "at this point the ties have already been established. Whether I marry her or not, if someone wants to get to me she will always be a potential target. Me leaving her would be like you leaving Elizabeth and Chase because a suspect wants to get to you." I realized too late that I had just given him a huge hint that Nugget existed, I mean the baby existed.

He looked at me accusingly, he knew he had hit on something. "You say that as if you have a kid involved too."

Thinking quickly, I gave him a casual reply. "Well, Caroline is leaving Lena to us. She may as well be ours."

"Right," he mused, still giving me that hard stare. It felt like being in an interrogation room, I would know.

"So, how about this paperwork," I announced quickly. He handed me about half of the stack of files in front of him. I grabbed my hat and turned to walk out of his office but he called out for me to wait. "Yeah," I asked, half turning to look at him.

"You and Annabelle are both on Twitter, right?"

My heart started to beat faster, a huge portion of her tweets, and many of mine, had been about the baby since she found out. She had even posted pictures. If he looked up our accounts, he would know everything. Why had I let her and Cassidy talk me into making one? But I kept my cool when I answered him. Show no fear. "Yeah, we do. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," he replied and gestured for me to go. But almost as soon as I was down the short flight of steps, I saw Jones nod before heading back. That was usually done in response to the infamous double finger point. I am so going back to prison.

I kept my face down and pretended to be hard at work taking care of the files in front of me—try and guess what percentage was mortgage fraud—but my mind kept drifting back to what I knew either already was or soon would be on Peter's computer screen. He would see everything. From the day she found out she was pregnant, to when Lena decided to be the "back-up mommy" for her, to my first midnight grocery store run because Belle wanted ice cream. Hell he would even know when everyone began referring to the baby as Nugget. He'd know about the new car, he'd know we were trying to find a new apartment within my radius. He'd know that me, Cassidy, and Annabelle had all gotten into a fight Sunday night basically over Kate. Everything we had wanted to wait to tell him, everything we didn't want him to know, he would find out about after a few minutes of reading.

As I had feared, I was only at my desk for about fifteen minutes tops before I heard Peter roar, "Caffrey, get in here!"

"Good luck man," Jones said quietly when I passed him. I would definitely need it. I would need a truck load of it.

**Annabelle's Point of View**

Once Neal was gone, I stood and turned on my laptop, opening up my iTunes and putting on my Rat Pack playlist so that the music flooded the small apartment. I sang softly to myself as I got together clothes to put on after I took my shower and cleaned up my breakfast dishes. I'd be lying if I said I didn't steal the rest of Neal's coffee. I hadn't had coffee in a week and had the caffeine withdrawal symptoms to prove it. But hey, it was the only time I had cheated on the caffeine, and I was going to try to make it the last.

As I entered the bathroom I pulled from under the sink the scale I had bought last week. Since I found I had gained my first three baby pounds on Sunday, I had been weighing myself almost obsessively. I had finally reached four baby pounds. It was small but I could see my little Nugget bump peeking out. I let my fingers dance over it for a moment before turning back to getting ready for my day. I took a quick shower and chose to skip on drying and straightening my hair, I had grown lazy over the past week. I just threw on one of my black button ups and a pair of dark wash jeans and my black boots. I planned on going downstairs—June had been letting Lena spend the night in her guest bedroom whenever Neal and I had all night babysitting duty—helping Le get ready, and probably take her to the park or something for the day so we could get out of the house.

But those plans received an adjustment when I spotted Neal's cell phone sitting forgotten on the coffee table. I rolled my eyes and laughed slightly at his expense. I stuck my own phone in my right pocket and his in my left before turning off my laptop and heading downstairs. I didn't find her in the guest room, but I did hear her cheerful giggling coming from downstairs.

"Hello ladies," I smiled at them when I found them seated together at the dining room table, empty plates in front of them.

"Annabelle," she shrieked happily and ran over to hug me. "Good morning Nugget," she continued and planted a kiss on my stomach.

"Did you guys have a good breakfast?" I asked, picking her up when she held her arms out to me.

"Yeah, we had pancakes," she told me happily. That explained the syrup all over her face and hands.

"Thanks for feeding her June," I turned gratefully to the older woman, who just smiled kindly in return.

"Not a problem, Annabelle. She's a sweet little girl."

"I was going to take her to the park after I got her cleaned up and dressed. Do you want to come with us?" I offered, shifting Le on my hip.

"I'd love to, but I have to take care of a few things down at the apartment I rent out up the block. I've gotten a lot of complaints and had to evict the tenants. Now I need to go make sure nothing needs any repairs before I can put it up for rent again."

"Oh, fun," I wrinkled my nose and sighed sympathetically. "But whenever you're done, give me a call and maybe we can meet you somewhere. We're meeting Neal for lunch, but other than that I don't have any concrete plans."

"I'll do that," she grinned at me and waved goodbye to Le before I headed back upstairs with her.

I had to fight her for a little to do so, but I eventually got all the syrup cleaned off of her face and hands. I don't know how, but she had even managed to get it on her forehead. "Alright, what do you want to wear today, Le?" I asked her after pulling two outfits out of the small book bag we had packed for her. One consisted of jeans and a long sleeved shirt striped with different shades of purple. The other was a dark blue dress with bright green butterflies scattered on it. Either way, she was wearing her little converses because they are way too cute.

She eventually chose the dress, which she put on all by herself. "You did a fabulous job sweetie, you are so grown up," I praised her noting that she had put it on the right way. Last time I let her get dressed alone she put her shirt on backwards. Do you know how hard it was to fix that without totally discouraging her? She also put her own socks and shoes on, only needing my assistance when it came time to tie them.

"Good job girl," I smiled widely and gave her a high five. "Now we've got to go see Neal first, he forgot his phone-"

"He's silly," she cut me off with a laugh.

"I know he is, but it's not nice to interrupt, okay? But we can't stay long because he's working. After we give him his phone we are gonna go play at the park for a while. And then we are going to see Neal again when we meet him for lunch. And maybe after that we can go see Mommy if she's feeling up to it," I mapped out our day for her as I went back upstairs to grab my purse then headed back down and out of the house so we could head for the office. "Sound like a good plan?"

"Yeah," she agreed excitedly, holding my hand tightly as we walked. "Is this where Neal goes to work?" she asked when we started going through security as we entered the FBI building. It wasn't quite airport security, but it was fairly close.

"Yeah, he tells my brother Peter how he can catch the bad guys," I told her as the guards gave us clearance and we headed for the elevator. Once I got off at the floor of the White Collar Unit, I sensed something was wrong. Before even walking through the glass doors, I heard muffled yelling and everyone sitting at their desks looked extremely uncomfortable. I searched frantically for Neal, but he was no where to be seen. Same goes for Peter.

"Lena, don't listen," I instructed and after I picked her up she pressed one ear to my chest and covered the other with her hand. I placed my hand over hers for added security. Lena had grown up hearing her parents fighting with each other to the point where things had even become violent, and now shouting frightened her more than anything else. I approached the face I knew best, Diana and asked her what was going on.

"Annabelle, Peter found out that Caffrey got you pregnant. I wouldn't go in there if I were you," she warned me as Peter and Neal took turns shouting at each other.

I ignored her warning and passed Lena over to her. "Make sure her ears stay covered," was all I told her before sprinting into my brother's office. They hadn't even bothered to close the door, so as soon as I was inside the room I did just that. This was our business and the whole unit didn't need to hear about it. "What the hell do you two think you're doing?"

"You didn't tell me you were pregnant?" he turned on me, looking even angrier than he had last week. I tried as hard as I could to resist the urge to cower into Neal.

"I was going to tell you later, but I didn't want to do it while you were still pissed about us getting engaged," I replied defensively. "Did you tell him?" I asked as I turned to look at Neal.

"No, why don't you tell her what you did Peter? Or maybe I should," he snapped angrily glaring across the room at him.

"I don't care who, as long as someone tells me what is going on!" I said through gritted teeth. I was trying hard not to yell just in case Lena stopped covering her ears, but it was becoming more difficult by the second.

"Peter looked up our twitter accounts," Neal started before Peter even had a chance to open his mouth. "And now you just know everything don't you Peter?"

"Well what other choice do I have when you can't tell me anything in person?"

"Okay, both of you shut up and calm down," I finally broke. I turned on Neal first. "You are not helping anything by acting like a dick, now sit down." I pushed him in the direction of the chair in front of the desk and then looked to Peter. "First of all, yes I agree we should have told you ourselves. However, we only were waiting so we could avoid a scene like this. And, you can see in the posts that I told Cassidy when she asked me that I was going to tell you in a few weeks. I just wanted you to calm down first, so don't get all offended and say I was going to keep it from you for some ridiculous amount of time. You both are acting like assholes, and you're making everyone in the unit feel uncomfortable. I have a little girl out there that is scared to death every time she hears someone raise their voice. And until both of you can learn to handle this like adults, I frankly would prefer to not talk to either of you." I glared at them both in turn before turning on my heel and walking back out of Peter's office to Lena, who, as I had feared, was in tears as she clung to Diana.

"Come here, Le," I cooed softly as I grabbed her from Diana. She began to sob into my shoulder as soon as I had a hold on her. "I'm sorry you had to hear that sweetie. They aren't being very nice right now. Do you just want to go home and watch movies?" She nodded her head and hiccupped as we started to walk out. I left Neal's phone on his desk next to his hat before we left.

I was fuming the entire walk back to June's and as I got Lena into her car seat. It was bad enough with my brother acting like an idiot, but now Neal was too. After she was secured into the back of the car I went around and got in the drivers seat. I stuck the keys in the ignition and allowed the car to warm up as I sent a text to Cassidy. _Hey, Lena and I are going to head to Caroline's apartment and watch some movies. Plus she hasn't been in her own home in a while. Anyways, feel free to join us since our brothers are both being stupid right now._

I let my _Classic Sinatra _CD play softly over the sound system as I fought traffic to get to Queens and Lena fell asleep before I was even two blocks away from June's. I was halfway there when Cassidy called me, the call going through to the car's Bluetooth.

"Hey, Cass," I sighed, fighting the impending headache. It's funny how now that I'm pregnant, you know, when I should be in a low-stress environment, there is more shit to deal with than ever before.

"What did our moronic siblings do?" she asked immediately.

"Peter got on our Twitter accounts and found out about the baby. He and Neal were at the office and I went to give Neal his phone because he forgot it and found them giving each other hell in Peter's office. So I had to go in and tell them both to shut up and grow up, and Lena overheard which got her upset, and now I'm not talking to either of them," I told her, too frustrated by the situation to cry even though I really wanted to.

"Why are boys so damn stupid? Thank god Dylan hasn't turned stupid yet, but god help him when he does," she replied, referring to her boyfriend of two weeks.

"It's that y-chromosome I think. My mom calls it 'broken x disorder,'" I replied, laughing slightly. My mom was always an extremely opinionated woman, Dad says that where Peter and I get our stubborn streaks from.

Cassidy laughed loudly on the other end. "That is an excellent point. Your mom sounds great."

"She is," I agreed. "I especially love how she and Dad didn't even care that Peter had arrested Neal and all that. They were just happy he asked me to marry him before he knew I was pregnant. So anyways, are you gonna join me and the monster at Caroline's? June may end up coming over at some point to if she wants to."

"Sounds great, but I won't be able to get there until after my shift. I opened this morning and I'm here until one."

"Alrighty, well I guess I'll let you get back to work and I'll see you then. Bye Cassie."

"See ya," she answered before disconnecting the call. A few seconds later the music came back on and I returned to singing along with Witchcraft.

"Le," I said softly when I reached the apartment building. "Lena, sweetie, wake up, we're home."

"Where's Momma?" she asked, leaning heavily on my chest when I picked her up out of the car.

"Mommy is still in the hospital baby, she's sick, remember?" I reminded her gently as I began to head towards Caroline's apartment after locking up the car and struggling to find her key with one hand.

When we got inside Lena had gained just enough awareness to tell me she wanted to watch the Princess Bride, only to fall back to sleep on my lap during the first five minutes. I had been in the apartment for about an hour when my phone began to buzz in my pocket. I carefully maneuvered it out into the open without waking Le and tried to resist crying or rolling my eyes when I saw my brother's name on the screen.

"What do you want Peter?" I snapped, the past week causing me to automatically become defensive.

He sighed and I could imagine him shaking his head at me before he answered. "Look Annabelle, I'm sorry. I know I did over react and I shouldn't have gone as far as looking at your things online. I'm in the car with Neal now, where are you?"

I released a sigh of my own and gently toyed with Le's hair, taking a few seconds to debate if I wanted to see them yet or not. "Alright," I caved after a surprisingly short mental debate—what can I say I hate fighting with my brother, I can't even tell you how many times I almost called him this past week. "Le and I are in Caroline's apartment watching movies. Either call me back or have Neal text me when you guys are here so I can open the door for you."

And naturally, Cassidy showed up just in time for me to start crying as I sat my phone on the cushion next to me. I don't even really know why I was crying at this point. I mean, he was coming over to make things better, not fight more. But none-the-less I hid my face in my future sister in laws shoulder as soon as she dashed over to my side after moving my phone out of her way.

"What's wrong Belle?" she asked, sounding slightly panicked. She had seen and heard of my many crying fits, but she still wasn't quite used to it.

"Nothing," I cried and the tears started flowing harder. "Peter and Neal are coming over to apologize, I shouldn't be crying right now!"

"Awh, sweetie," she chuckled slightly. "I think this may be another one to put on Nugget, as much as I hate blaming the little booger for things."

I just giggled slightly as I continued to cry. "Nugget is trying to get revenge since Neal and I had to put today's apartment hunt on hold. She—"

"Or he," Cassidy interrupted. We both had realized I kept referring to Nugget as a girl, and since then she started correcting me every time so 'Nugget won't develop gender confusion'.

"Yes, or he, is just mad that she—or he—doesn't have a bedroom yet."

"Annabelle, why you crying?" Lena asked tiredly, looking up at me as I apparently woke her up. Instantly I felt guilty and started sobbing.

Cassidy squeezed my hand gently and then pulled Lena from my lap and onto hers. "Annabelle is fine, sweetie, Chicken Nugget is just making her feel funny right now," she explained gently.

Le got a surprisingly angry look on her face and leaned over so her face was less than and inch away from my stomach. "Chicken Nugget, stop being mean to your mommy! It's not nice!" she demanded before going back to sitting upright on Cassie's lap and turned her attention to the end of the movie.

Cass and I looked at each other and started laughing as quietly as we could manage. That girl was just way too funny. I seriously need Caroline to write me a 'How to' guide book on being a mom.

"Big brother's calling," Cassidy told me after looking at my phone half an hour later which was again vibrating slowly moving itself away from where she had sat it on the coffee table.

"Hey, Peter, I'm pretty sure Cassie left the door unlocked after she came in so you can just come on up," I said as soon as I picked up before he could even get a syllable out.

"Okay, we'll see you in a few then," he replied before hanging up. Less than three minutes later the two men came through the door, both looking guilty with their tails between their legs.

I stared at them both for a moment before getting up and walking over immediately going to hug my brother tightly. "I'm sorry," I mumbled into his shirt. I'm not quite sure what I was apologizing for, but it seemed appropriate for the moment.

"You didn't do anything. I over reacted and went too far." We finally pulled apart and I gestured to the couch so we all could sit down. Neal sat next to Cass and I sat on his other side half way leaning on him while Peter occupied my other side. "So you're really pregnant huh?" he sighed looking as if he didn't really believe it.

"Mhmm, seven weeks and one day," I confirmed, a cheesy grin making its way onto my face. "Just out of curiosity, how did you get to our accounts? Did you hack them or something?"

He just laughed and shook his head. "No, I just made my own account and followed you all. And you can thank Elle for the idea too. She made an account of her own this morning and I saw that you guys were on there. I honestly didn't even expect to find anything more than I already knew . . . obviously I did," he told me, sounding a bit uncomfortable towards the end.

"How dare you use your wife like that," I gasped feigning shock and smacked his arm. I hate to admit it, but that actually was a really smart idea. "You're lucky Nugget isn't letting me hold grudges anymore," I teased him, referring to the fact that I was far too emotional to stay angry for any amount of time. It would come and go in a flash, usually followed by apologizing and crying.

"Yeah, what is with the whole 'Nugget' thing?" he asked, looking at all of us like we belonged in an asylum.

"Because they baby looks like a chicken nugget, duh," Lena rolled her eyes at the question and never even looked away from the movie.

"She's been spending too much time with you," Peter looked at me accusingly. "She's like you but blonde."

"As much as I would love to take credit for that, she learned that before I ever came along."

"So where are you guys going to live?" he asked, I could tell he was forcing the curiosity. I didn't expect him to be happy with the situation though, so I was just glad he was making the effort.

"You mean you didn't see the tweets?" Cassie asked sarcastically, the look on her face letting him know she was, for the most part, only teasing him.

"Well, I could only read up to a certain point until I got too angry and then went ahead and called Neal in," he replied. She nodded indicating that she knew what he meant and then Peter turned from her to me and Neal, waiting for an answer.

"Well we spent yesterday after I got out of work looking at places in his radius, but didn't find anything that qualified as both decent and affordable. But we still have more places to look at today and we will probably have to overlap that into tomorrow as well since we lost time today," I informed him, giving him a pointed look at the last part.

"I'm surprised you haven't convinced June to let you guys expand into other parts of her house," he looked at Neal, only half kidding.

Neal just shrugged, "She does too much for me already. And most of the places we've looked at are places she's told us about." Peter just nodded, looking like he was at least a little bit impressed by the answer.

"Oh, that reminds me, June might be coming over later," I said suddenly, I had almost completely forgotten about her. I think ADD may be a side effect of pregnancy.

"Does that mean I get to babysit the munchkin again?" Cassidy asked enthusiastically. She was so attached to Lena it was adorable. I seriously wish she had come to New York sooner she was so easy to get along with. I had known her less than a month and was already as close to her as I was to Elle and Caroline.

"Yes, remember you promised this little lady you'd watch the Piglet movie with her," Neal flashed a grin and playfully tugged on a strand of Lena's hair.

"Yay!" Le exclaimed and clapped her hands together excitedly. "Can we play wif duckies too?" She turned her big blue eyes on Cassidy.

"Of course," she replied immediately.

"Should I go then?" he asked awkwardly, beginning to stand before I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back down.

"No, you can stay, we aren't leaving yet," I said quickly. I had been like this with Peter since I was little. Whenever we would fight, we'd go for days without talking but then when we made up I would cling to him. I know that isn't at all a good thing, but I couldn't help it.

"Alright, I guess I'll stay then," he laughed at me slightly. "What are we watching?" he asked a few moments later.

"The Princess Bride," Neal, Cassie, and I all answered at once. Since Caroline still wasn't aloud to come home—she was not responding well to the treatment last time I talked to her—Lena had been with us for about a weeks now. And we had watched the Princess Bride once a day at minimum, but usually it ended up being two or three times a day.

"You'll get to do this as soon as Chase gets a little older," I added, flashing him an evil grin. "Except you'll be watching things like Cars and other stuff without princesses."

"Oh I can't wait," he replied.

"Gah, hold on," I sighed when my phone once again started to ring in my pocket. "Hello?" I answered without even looking at who it was.

"Belle, I think I know what to do about you and Neal getting an apartment," June's voice came back from the other end.

"What do you mean?" I asked quickly and sat straight up.

"That apartment I was telling you about this morning. It used to belong to me and Byron when we first got married. I didn't want to offer earlier in case it needed major repairs. But it's in great shape and it's still in his radius. Plus I own the building now and I'm the one who rents it out. I can make it so your rent is the same as what I'm being paid now," she replied, my smile growing wider with every word she said.

"June that is so beyond perfect," I nearly squealed. I pulled the phone away from my mouth and turned to Neal. "June is going to let us have her and Byron's old apartment!"

"What?" he gasped and moved closer as I put the phone on speaker.

"I'm here now if you want to come look at it. And in the meantime I'll see what I can do about getting some better furniture in here for you," she went on, her tone implying that even if we said she didn't have to do that she would anyway.

"I-uh-yes," I stumbled over my words, too excited to even speak.

"She means we're on our way," Neal clarified and kissed the side of my head.

"Then I will see you soon and we can talk more once you've seen it," she said, you could just hear the smile in her voice, before we all exchanged goodbyes and hung up.

"So much for lost time," Peter shook his head at us, his face torn between a smile and his 'you would' face. "You always seem to get what you want with out even trying," he said to Neal.

"Not everything," Neal corrected him and placed his arm around my waist at the same time as I grabbed our keys and put my phone in my pocket.

"Alright, well I need to get back to Elle and Chase. I'll see you all later," he gave me a hug as we all stood and then just waved to everyone else.

"Okay, sweetie," I went over to Lena. "Neal and I are going to go look at another apartment, okay? You need to be good for Cassidy and don't forget to let her know if you need to use the bathroom okay? You don't have your diaper on so you'll need her to help you with the toilet."

"Okay," she nodded obediently before hopping off of the couch and wrapped her tiny arms tightly around me before going and doing the same with Neal.

"We shouldn't be too late, but depending on how things go we may end up starting to move some stuff today. Her nap goes from one-thirty and it just goes until whenever she wakes up. I usually give her a bath around eight and then let her watch TV or play until I put her to bed between nine and ten."

"Yes ma'am," she grinned at me and saluted.

"We'll call when we are on our way back," Neal added before we headed out. I made him drive and we got to June's old apartment in about forty-five minutes thanks to that lovely New York City traffic.

"Did you eat packets of sugar or something?" Neal asked teasingly after I all but leaped from the car.

"Shut up, I'm excited," I blushed and smacked his arm gently.

"Hello, dear," June smiled and hugged Neal as we approached her where she was waiting outside for us. "And Annabelle, how are you?"

"Excited," I grinned as I nearly bounced right out of my skin.

"Well then let's not waste any time," she smiled at my demeanor and turned around and entered the building, Neal and I following a few feet behind her. I was so fidgety I probably could've just run right up the stairs, but instead we took the elevator and I gripped Neal's hand tightly as I attempted to control myself. "And here we are," she announced after we got off on the third floor and she led us to the apartment at the end of the hall and she unlocked the door, opening it so that Neal and I could enter first.

"Oh my god," I gasped. There was no way she would be renting this to us for the same as Neal's room at her house. It just didn't make sense. "Look at this kitchen," I exclaimed, releasing Neal's hand and going to my left, by passing the dining table and running my hand along the island. "I may actually try to learn to cook without setting it on fire. Or you could just keep doing it. That might be safer."

"Yeah, probably," he agreed, hanging back with June and laughing as I jumped excitedly from one thing to the next.

I had to take a step back after I looked in at the walk in pantry. "Is this what I think it is?" I asked, gesturing to the door right next to the pantry.

"Take a look and find out," June gave me a knowing look and a warm smile.

I threw it open and resist the urge to do a dance of excitement. "I have my own laundry room," I shrieked and ran back to them, hugging both members of my audience tightly. There wasn't a washer and dryer at the apartment in Queens and I had to go to a Laundromat up the streets. It was a downfall that I absolutely hated because everyone there was really annoying and there was this really sketchy guy that always hung out across the street and weirded me out.

"Come on, let's go look at the rest of it," Neal grinned and shook his head at me as June lead us down a hallway off of the living room—which was also amazing!

"Now there are three bedrooms, there's a hall bathroom there," she pointed to the first door on the right. She then led us into the door across the hall.

"This would be perfect for Le," I observed happily as I looked around. There was still a twin bed in there; I am assuming it was left over from the previous residents. The room was the same size as the one she had at home but the closet was almost twice as big so she would have plenty of room to put away her clothes and toys.

Next we went to the second bedroom which was a few feet down the hall from the first bathroom. Immediately after walking in I began to imagine where I would put everything. The crib would go against the wall to the left, changing table would go against the right wall near the door, the glider I was looking at online would probably fit perfectly in the back right corner. At the moment the room was set up as a guest room, but it wasn't what I was seeing. This room was the first room I wasn't jumping from place to place, physically I was frozen standing just in front of the door as my mind got carried away.

I didn't know whether Nugget would end up being a Payton Caroline or Dean Michael, but I usually imagined a girl. At the moment I was seeing Neal and I, he was holding her and singing to her as we got her ready for bed.

"Belle, you okay?" Neal asked, gently cupping the side of my face, snapping me from my day dream.

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry," I laughed slightly and blushed, wiping at my eyes which had begun to water at some point.

He pulled me into a hug and looked to June, waiting for her to lead the way. He kept his arms around me as she took us through the door on the short adjacent wall. There was no doubt in my mind this was the master bedroom. Even with nothing but the bare furniture in it, it was obviously superior to the previous bedrooms. It had its own bathroom and a walk in closet—something Neal and I would definitely need with the amount of clothes we both had.

"Will you promise not to pass out if we go look at the bathroom?" Neal asked jokingly as we headed towards the door.

"I can promise I'll try," I giggled as we began walking over. Once again I was faced with another breath taking room. We had our own shower, a separate bathtub (I made a mental note of the fact that it could fit two people), a sink for each of us and a towel closet next to the shower. "June, this apartment is seriously perfect," I said and went over to give her another tight hug.

"Then in that case no one deserves it more than the two of you and your family," she replied, returning the hug just as tightly. "Come on, let's go back to the living room and we can talk more about you guys moving in."

"Now, some of the furniture isn't in the best of shape, so I've already called and had it arranged to be moved out and replaced later this evening, I've done the same for all the mattresses. But you can start moving in anytime you want. Do you know which one you will want to use as the nursery?" She asked, looking at me. She knew I did, she probably even knew which one I had chosen.

"The one next to the bathroom. But I want to wait until we know if it's a boy or a girl before we start decorating it, so it can just stay a guest room for now," I answered, thinking about it as I spoke. "We can bring in bedding and non-essentials tonight, get those put away . . . and then tomorrow we can move in our clothes, Le's toys, and things like that. I only have about half of her clothes and toys packed up, that way she has stuff at home for whenever Caroline is allowed to go home, but she will still have plenty here."

"I like when people know what they want," June gave me an approving nod and Neal just grinned widely at me. I blushed and laughed, feeling a bit embarrassed now.

"Come on," he urged me and stood, "let's get started."

* * *

**So here it is my lovely gals and guys. A nice long chapter for you and I hope you all enjoyed it. For those that are interested, pictures of their apartment will be posted on twitter in the next few days. Also, you can follow my personal account, silentwriter93, for updates on the progress of the story or even if you just want to chat. Also Peter and Elizabeth now have their own accounts, pburke1973 and elleamberburke.**

**As usual I need to thank everyone who took the time to review, it seriously just makes my day whenever I get the chance to hear from you guys. You are all so sweet and just all around amazing and this story would be impossible without your support. Another loverly lady I couldn't do this without is my fave (and only lol) consultant/assistant CassidyCaffrey.**

**And, as a side note, how did you guys spend your White Collar one year anniversary? I spent my day rewatching season one as I edited this chapter. The best day I've had in a long time, I must say. I can't believe it's already been one year since I skipped out on my 11th grade homecoming to watch the first episode of what is now my favorite show.**

**Much love,**

**~TheRatPack**


	15. Chapter 14: New Friends and Best Friends

**Chapter Fourteen: New Friends and Best Friends**

"_We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."  
~Orson Welles_

**Tuesday, October 26**

"Wow, you weren't kidding," Cassidy commented as I led her back past the living room and dining room, into the hallway where there were about a dozen or so boxes stacked against the wall waiting to be taken into their respective rooms and put away.

"Yeah, I didn't realize how much stuff we actually had," I chuckled and sat my purse and stack of papers I needed to grade on the table next to my side of the bed—which thankfully Neal had made up after I left, because I was too tired to care. "Alright, well I think most of this is just things to go into our closet. There may be one or two boxes of Lena's things, but I'm not sure because I stopped labeling things after a while."

"Wow, Nugget really has made you lazy," she teased and poked the growing bump hidden by my dress.

"Don't blame my child for that," Neal said as he walked in from the kitchen with a glass of water in his hand. "She's just naturally lazy."

I rolled my eyes and turned to look at him. "Aren't you supposed to be meeting Mozzie for another one of those talks you'll never tell me anything about?" Hello hormones.

Unfazed by my sudden shift in mood, he just smirked at me—causing the hormones to give me an urge to hit him, which I resisted—and answered simply, "He cancelled on me, so you guys get an extra set of hands."

I shook my head and rephrased his answer. "No, he cancelled on you, so you get to babysit the munchkin, and we'll handle this."

"Oh, yes ma'am," he gave me a funny look and used his free hand to salute. "Have fun, then."

"Rawr," Cassie laughed at me and sat her own purse down on the bed.

"Oh let's just get started," I sighed and pulled in the stack of boxes closest to the bedroom door. "Wait," I paused before using my key to tear the tape off the first box. "I have to pee again." I handed over my keys and went quickly to the bathroom.

"You are sooo pregnant," I heard her laugh at me as she tore open the first box.

"Oh shut up. But seriously, how can a baby that weighs less than an ounce already be playing so much hell on my bladder?" I yelled to her through the closed door as I took care of business.

After finishing up and washing my hands I returned to where she was waiting for me and joined her on the floor. I peeked into the box, it was all of my pregnancy books—some I had picked up on my own, the others Elle and Mom had given to me—plus three picture frames. The first was black with white vine-like design painted on it and it contained a picture of me, Neal, and Cassidy. The second was taken by a friendly oncology nurse in the hospital just last week when I had gone, along with Lena, Elle, and Chase, to visit Caroline on a day when she had been feeling slightly better. All of us were piled on the bed and laughing at something Lena had said. When the nurse walked in and right before taking the picture Lena had introduced me as her 'second mommy'. The nurse, since that was my first time meeting her and she has never met Neal before, remains convinced that Caroline and I are a couple.

The third has always been my favorite and has always sat next to my bed since the day it was developed. In the picture I am exactly four years old—it was taken on my birthday—and Peter is fifteen. He has me up on his shoulders and I have a fistful of his hair gripped tightly in my tiny hand as he stood next to Mom-mom and Pop-pop. We were all smiling widely at the camera, me trying as hard as I could to show all of my teeth—a smile I, at the time, referred to as a "sparkly." Both me and my brother were clad in soaking wet bathing suits, because every December our parents would let us take off of school and we would spend a week on vacation in California. This was the year we were in San Diego.

I snapped myself out of the memories and grabbed that picture and my books. Pointing to the other pictures, I told Cassidy, "Put those on the dresser, one on either side of the mirror." Then I pushed myself back up off the floor and sat the books on the table between my lamp and the picture.

"One down, more than I care to mention to go," she grinned at me as I broke down the box and sat the now flat piece of cardboard to the side.

After about two hours we were still only halfway done. "I'm done," I groaned and flopped back onto a pile of clothes sitting on the floor of my closet waiting to be put away.

"Annabelle, come on" Cassidy urged me and yanked on one of my hands in an attempt to pull me up, only succeeding in temporarily lifting my back off the floor before I returned to laying limply on the mix of my jeans and Neal's shirts.

"No," I crossed my arms and pouted. "Nugget wants dinner."

"Yeah, blame the fetus," she rolled her eyes. "Neal! Your fiancée needs a lift to the kitchen, we're taking a dinner break," she yelled for her brother as she stepped over me and walked out.

"You're so mean, don't just leave me here!" I called after her and laughed.

"Really Belle?" Neal shook his head and grinned at me when he entered the closet.

"I'm tired of unpacking," I whined and reached my arms out to him.

"You're such a child sometimes," he sighed teasingly as he bent down and slipped one arm around my waist and the other under my knees.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Think of it as me helping you practice."

"I'm sure that is exactly your intention," he chuckled and carried me down to the kitchen, sitting me on a stool by the counter separating the living room from the kitchen. He pointed to Cassie and then the chair, "Sit down, I raised you, I know you can't cook any better than she can."

"Oh, well, excuse me," she sniffed and sat next to me, pretending to be offended.

"Le, come here, we're making dinner," he called out, taking a few steps towards the hallway.

"I want a sammich," she declared with her hands on her hips as she walked out.

We all tried to hold back a laugh and Neal picked her up, sitting her down on the island. "What kind of sandwich do you want?"

"Peanut butter and jelly!"

"Alright, but you need to eat something else with it," he told her and started pulling things out of the pantry. "What do you two want?" he turned to me and Cass as he began making Lena's PB&J.

We turned to each other to deliberate. "Do you want—"

"That'd be good, but I had something similar yesterday. Maybe—"

"No, I don't like that."

After the small series of incomplete sentences, we turned and answered him at the same time, "Chicken soup."

"You guys are weird," Lena giggled, kicking her feet as she waited for her sandwich.

**Thursday, October 28**

"Alright, guys," I addressed my seventh period. "Remember, tomorrow is the last day of first quarter and we get out three hours early. Any missing work you have either give it to me now, or email it to me."

"Why?" McKenna interrupted me just as I was about to hit that point.

"I am leaving right after school today because I have a baby appointment," I tried to suppress the ridiculous grin trying to implant itself on my face. "And my friend Caroline is in the hospital, and she wants me to come see her first thing tomorrow morning, so I'm probably not coming in depending on what she needs and how long it takes."

"Awh, I'm sorry about your friend. But congrats on the baby," she replied. I forgot she was absent the day I announced it to the class.

"When will you know if it's a boy or girl?" Nicole asked.

"The doctor said at about eighteen weeks, so in ten more weeks." The afternoon announcements started at that point, the principal's droning voice cutting into our conversation. As they all began putting up their chairs to leave, I raised my voice slightly so they could hear me over everything else. "Alright guys, I'll see you all on Monday and please, please, be careful on Sunday! I don't want to hear about any of my kids doing something stupid and getting hurt."

I heard a few kids reply with variations on "we will," plus some "see you Monday"s. I waited until they all were gone before collecting my things. Thankfully with the quarter ending, all I'd had to grade was some missing work and I had done most of that during my free period and any more work that they wanted to hand in I could do online—assuming that they were listening when I told them to email it—and all I had to take with me as I left was my purse. Before leaving, I shot a quick text to Neal to let him know that I was on my way and I'd meet him at Dr. Mitchell's office and then I tossed my phone in my mess of a bag and headed out to the car.

I sang loudly to my music and danced around in my seat as I sat through the traffic. Yeah, I'm one of those drivers. But at least you can never accuse me of road rage, just tone deafness. Today's music of choice was the Veronicas, more specifically Revolution, which was my current favorite song by them.

"Hellloooo bayyybeh," I greeted Neal in front of the building after parking and walking halfway up the block to where he was waiting out front. I stood on my toes and he leaned down to meet me halfway in a kiss. "Are you excited?" I grinned at him, walking backwards as I pulled him inside.

"Of course I am," he smiled widely at me and picked me up with one arm around my waist, holding me tight to his side. I let out a high pitched giggle and wrapped my arms loosely around his shoulders, bending my knees slightly but otherwise still just let my legs hang down. He didn't even put me down when we went to sign in.

"Hi," I laughed when the man at the desk finally looked up at me. "Annabelle Burke, I have an appointment."

He nodded uninterested and pushed a button on the phone on his desk. "Dr. Mitchell, Annabelle Burke is here."

"Alright, send her back," she replied, her voice was distorted slightly by the intercom but she still sounded like she was in a better mood than the guy at the desk.

"Onward," I told Neal. He smirked at me and reached his other arm down and brought my legs up so he was carrying me bridal style and proceeded through the doorway to the right of the desk into the hallway. "The door on the right," I told him, knowing she would be waiting for us in the exam room.

"Hi Annabelle," she greeted me, laughing slightly at my entrance. "And is this the father?"

He sat me on my feet but kept one arm around my waist, reaching out his other hand to her when she stood. "Neal Caffrey," he introduced himself and offered his most charming smile when she shook his hand.

"Nice to finally meet you," she smiled back and gestured for us to take our seats, me in the reclined chair covered by plain white paper that crackled loudly as I laid down and Neal sat in the hard-backed chair right next to mine. "So eight weeks today. Any problems you need to tell me about?"

"Do ridiculous mood swings and increased McDonald's consumption count?" I asked jokingly.

"No, not really," she chuckled. "Pull up your shirt for me and pull down your skirt," she instructed as she picked up the gel that she would be putting on my stomach. I sighed in anticipation—that crap is freezing!—and unzipped the pencil skirt and rolled it down so it was folded over and the top hit about and inch under my hips and pulled my shirt up to right under my bra.

"Gah," I squealed and grabbed Neal's hand as she squeezed the gel onto the newly exposed skin.

"I'm sorry, I know it's really cold," she apologized when I jumped slightly. She moved the instrument around for a moment trying to find a good angle. "And there's your baby."

"Babe, look, there's Nugget," I gasped and he tightened his grip on my hand.

"It's amazing," was all he said as he looked at me, but everything he was feeling shone through those bright blue eyes I love so much. In the back of my mind I hoped Nugget would get his eyes. They were definitely much better than my brown ones.

"Wait until your next appointment when we can try to look for the heartbeat," she grinned at us as I got the goo off of my stomach and righted my clothes. I hadn't started growing out of clothes yet, but I could tell by the way my outfits had begun clinging I would have to breakdown and buy maternity clothes at some point.

Once I was ready to go we both said goodbye to Dr. Mitchell before going back out to the lobby, taking care of the co-pay and then up the street to the car. "Wait a minute," I paused and held an arm out to stop Neal before he could cross to the driver's side. "Is that Mozzie?" I pointed across the street to the short bald man waiting nervously on the corner, occasionally looking down the street every so often as if he were waiting for someone. "Is it just me, or has he gotten weirder since he got shot?" I asked, sounding uncharacteristically blunt.

"How nicely put," he replied sarcastically. "But yeah, I know what you mean. Wait here; I'll go talk to him." Naturally, being a Burke, instead of staying put as he asked, I simply gave it a few seconds before I went off after him. "Hey, Moz," he approached him. Mozzie jumped and stared at him with wide eyes, obviously not expecting to see him there.

It wasn't until he turned to look at us that we noticed he had a cell phone pressed to his other ear. "I – uh," he stuttered. "Min, uhm, something's come up, can we meet – oh, you're just around the corner? Okay . . .I'll see you soon then."

"Who's Min?" I whispered to Neal as Mozzie hung up and put his phone in his pocket.

Neal just shrugged and repeated the question to Moz, adding, "Are you still not introducing me to girls you like?"

"I would've introduced you to this one . . . eventually," he answered and shifted his weight from one foot to another. When Neal just raised his eyebrows at him he sighed. "This one's special, she's –"

He was cut off when a tiny girl with long fiery red hair turned the corner with a violin case in hand, calling his name happily as soon as she saw him. It was obvious by the look she gave him what he meant by her being special. The way she looked at him was like the look Lena got when she opened her birthday presents back in August. If they weren't already in love they were definitely well on their way. "Mozzie, who is this?" the woman asked, looking to me and Neal after hugging Mozzie tightly and planting a shy kiss on his cheek.

"I'm Neal Caffrey; I'm a friend of Mozzie's. This is my fiancée Annabelle Burke," Neal introduced us and we both shook her hand. In response she smiled nervously and began fiddling with the black thick rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose as she ever-so-slightly moved closer to Mozzie's side.

"I'm, err, I'm Milene Sawyer. Most people just call me Min," she replied quietly and ran her hand through her flaming locks.

"Nice to meet you," I told her and smiled warmly in an attempt to make her more comfortable. "So you're a musician?" I prompted in an attempt to prevent an awkward silence.

"Oh, uh, yeah. I work with the orchestra at the Gershwin Theatre," she mumbled, blushing enough that her face almost matched her hair.

"Oh cool! I'm going there to see Wicked with one of my friends next week," I grinned at her, and she finally smiled back. Ice, broken.

"You'll love it, we just had a rehearsal, and it's going to be great." She then got an embarrassed look and then turned to Mozzie as if asking for help. "I'm sorry, but we kind of have plans in a few minutes. But I hope I get to see you guys again soon."

"Yeah, same here. See you later Min, bye Mozzie."

"Bye," Neal said with a smile, giving Mozzie a strange look as the two of them walked away together.

**Friday, October 29**

"I can't believe he didn't tell me he had a girlfriend," Neal complained for the millionth time after we dropped Lena off with Elizabeth and got back into the car and began making our way to the hospital. I'm not sure why, but Caroline told us not to bring Lena with us today. That had me worried and upset enough; I really didn't want to hear Neal bitching on top of it.

I rolled my eyes and snapped at him, "Seriously, let it the fuck go! I don't want to hurt you, but if you don't stop whining I am seriously considering stabbing you."

"Calm down, I was just saying," he put one hand up defensively and looked at me out of the corner of his eye with his eyebrows raised.

"Well you've been _just saying_ since we met Min yesterday. And don't tell me to calm down! Why don't you try carrying around five extra pounds and running to the bathroom every ten minutes to either pee or throw up while listening to you whine about your best friend's insecurities!" I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest, turning away from him to stare moodily out the window.

As we pulled into the parking garage at the hospital where Caroline was admitted I sighed and finally turned to look at him again. "I'm sorry," I said in defeat. "I'm being mean to you for no reason. I'm just really worried about her."

"I know you are," he grabbed my hand reassuringly. I felt slightly better – but needless to say still abnormally anxious – as we parked and walked towards the entrance so we could sign in. But as soon as we reached oncology, I felt sick to my stomach, and it wasn't because of Nugget. "Come on," he told me gently and placed his arm around my shoulder as we walked towards Carrie's room.

"Hey, sweetie," I smiled softly and hugged her as soon as we walked in. As it did every time I went to see her, how thin she was shocked me. The woman in the hospital bed wasn't the woman I became best friends with when I moved here. She had lost at a minimum thirty pounds, all her hair was gone, there were dark circles around her eyes, and her skin had long ago lost its tan and it was now a ghostly white. "How are you feeling?" I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, absent mindedly moving and straightening out the random items sitting on the bedside table.

"I'm fine," she lied for my benefit. "Now stop going OCD for five minutes so I can talk to you two."

"Sorry," I chuckled nervously and immediately withdrew my hands. Neal pulled a chair over so he could be close to me and grabbed my hands in his.

"What's going on Caroline?" Neal asked when an awkward silence threatened to settle.

"I'm dying," she stated simply, a pained look in her eye.

My first instinct was to deny it. "No, sweetie, you'll be fine-"

"Annabelle, we've known since I was diagnosed I was going to die. But I don't have as long as I thought." My eyes welled up and I squeezed Neal's hands harder and harder as she went on. "The treatments aren't working like they should be. Most patients would at least have been able to go home by now, but I haven't left this hospital since my first round of chemo. They want to change my status to permanent stay. I'll . . . I'll be lucky if I survive long enough to see this one," her eyes began watering as well and she placed a shaking hand on my small belly.

She quickly wiped under her eyes to catch stray tears before grabbing a small stack of papers off of the table. "You guys need to sign these," she said and placed them on top of my and Neal's interlocked hands. Pulling one hand from my grip he picked them up to examine and looked back at her with his eyebrows pulling together.

"These are –" he started.

"Guardianship papers, yes," she nodded, confirming what he saw. "I'm signing full parental rights over to the two of you. I can't exactly take care of her anymore, and she would have ended up with you both anyway. I just need to know she's being taken care of. And Lena loves you both so much." I was openly crying now, with my now free hand clamped over my mouth in a futile attempt to stifle my sobs. "I've already signed everything I need to, the rest of the blanks need to be signed by the two of you."

Neal squeezed my hand in an attempt to reassure me before grabbing a pen from his pocket and signing his name in all the places indicated by Caroline. When it came to be my turn to sign I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking, making my handwriting even messier than usual. But it was done. Lena was, legally, our daughter.

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**I'm sorry this took me so long you guys! I've had writers block from hell and nothing was coming out right and I wanted to be sure I got this chapter right. Anyway, hopefully y'all can forgive ****me and I am seriously trying to make sure the next one doesn't take as long. Thank you every one for your supportive reviews, you guys all know by now how much I love hearing from you!**

**Until next time!**

**~Meagan**


	16. Chapter 15: Separation Anxiety

**Stolen Sweets  
Chapter 15: Separation Anxiety**

"_And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."  
~Khalil Gibran_

**Neal's POV**

**November 1, 6:00 AM**

It felt strange having to get up for work again. I'd gotten used to spending my days with Lena. She was really going to cause some guy a lot of headaches in a few years. When she's forty and allowed to date. I couldn't imagine how it felt for Peter, having to leave Chase to go run around after guys like me all day.

My feelings of guilt over leaving her only became worse when Belle brought her out into the kitchen after they were both dressed and ready. When she saw that I was dressed to leave the apartment she got such a bright smile on her face as if Christmas had come early. "Where we goin' Neal? We goin' to the park 'gain?" she asked and jumped up into my arms.

"Not today, munchkin," I started hesitantly after kissing Belle and handing her breakfast.

"Why you dressed already?" she looked at me with her small blond eyebrows pulled together. This was way off from our usual routine over the past month. Normally I wouldn't get her up until around eight when we'd both eat breakfast. Then I'd get her bathed and dressed and let her play or watch TV while I got ready, then we'd go do what we wanted for the day. Usually we went to the park or the playground. If Cassidy was at work, sometimes we'd stop by and visit her and Dylan, her boyfriend. I'd call Caroline and if she was feeling okay then we'd go see her. If not, we'd go straight to lunch before either going back to the park or going to see a movie. Then we'd head home and she'd play. Sometimes she'd rope me into either the Wizard of Oz or the Princess Bride. Other times Mozzie would come over and she would play in the living room while he and I talked.

"I have to go back to work today, Le. Remember I told you yesterday?" I reminded her as I put together a bowl of cereal for her. She'd had an aversion lately to any foods other than Cheerios, dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, and pretzels. Trying to get her to eat anything else was an uphill battle. "So you get to hang out with Elle and Chase today and Annabelle is going to pick you up on her way home."

"No," she whined and looked at me like she was about to cry. I almost picked up the phone to call and say I was sick, I couldn't go back yet. But if I didn't go back to work, I'd go back to prison instead. "I wan' you stay!" she insisted and grabbed my sleeve when I sat her down in her chair.

Belle came to my recue and gently ran her fingers through Le's hair and told her, "He can't sweetie. You'll see him when he gets home. And if he didn't go, he'd get in a lot of trouble and then he'd have to go away for a really long time. And you don't wanna be stuck with just me do you? I'm the evil one you know." She ended on a teasing note and tickled Le's side lightly, making her giggle and squirm away.

"Fine," she sighed and picked up her spoon. I knew the fight wasn't over – she'd probably get upset all over again once we got to Peter's – but at least I wouldn't have to drag her out of the apartment or anything like that.

As I had predicted, she got upset as soon as we got to Peter and Elle's. Peter and I were just about to walk out the front door when she started crying and grabbed my leg. "Stay!" she demanded and hid her face in my shoulder when I picked her up.

I glanced apologetically at Peter and Elizabeth before taking her into the kitchen and hugged her tightly while I waited for her to calm down. "I wish I could stay, honey. But I have to go. I wouldn't leave you unless I absolutely had to. And you know you'll see me when I get home, right?"

"But what if you don't?" she sobbed and tightened her grip around my neck. "Mommy and Daddy both left. I don't want you and Annabelle to go too!"

"Lena, I promise neither of us are going to leave you alone. Annabelle's picking you up when school is all over and I'll be home a little while after that. And you know your Mommy didn't want to leave you. That's why we always take you to go see her. She loves you more than anything and would do anything to be able to go home and have you back with her. But she's really sick and she can't. That's why she is letting you stay with me and Annabelle, because she knows we'll always be there when she can't be." I hoped I had sufficiently distracted her from asking about her dad. I couldn't speak for him, and I wouldn't. How could I explain him abandoning her without making her more upset?

Eventually she stopped crying and her death grip loosened slightly. "Are you ready to go back out?"

"Yeah," she sniffed. God, as if I hadn't wanted to leave before . . .

When we walked back out to the living room, she leaned away from me and held her arms out for Elle to hold her. "I'll see you later, munchkin," I promised and kissed the top of her head before finally heading out with Peter.

"What?" I asked when we got in the car and I noticed the smirk on Peter's face.

"I don't know who has more control over you, Annabelle, or Lena," he chuckled as he started the car. I shrugged and laughed slightly. The man had a point.

**November 2  
Belle's POV**

It was so strange having a day to myself. I didn't have any doctor's appointments, I didn't have to work thanks to elections, Lena was "kidnapped" by Cassidy for the day, and Neal was working a mortgage fraud case with Peter. I didn't get out of bed until ten – a big change considering I usually only get to sleep until about eight on weekends, five when I have to work.

I quickly checked my phone and found a text message from Anita Pattison. I had met Nita in college. She was originally from Victoria, Australia, but she had been taking some teaching courses at the University of New Orleans as part of a study abroad program. She had found me a few months ago on Twitter and now she was coming to New York for part of her vacation and we were going to meet up today. First we were going to get lunch, then we were seeing Wicked, and then I planned on taking her shopping on Broadway/Times Square. She had never been to the city before, so I figured that would be a good a place as any to take her.

The text simply was letting me know that she would be arriving in the city at around noon. So, I finally willed myself to actually get out from under the warm covers and headed to the shower. Afterwards, I quickly dried and straightened my hair before pulling on some jeans and an owl print, long-sleeved, thermal shirt along with some dark purple converse low tops – Neal finally managed to talk me into replacing the black ones that had finally fallen apart. By the time I had completely finished getting ready it was almost eleven and I decided I needed to go if I was going to be on the subway. (Since getting our car, we had decided when I had to work I would drop Neal and Le off at Peter's on my way, but since I'd be running around all day and Le was with his sister, Neal just drove himself to the FBI office today).

I made a quick stop to pick up some peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks, so after fighting that line and having to wait through all the subway stops, I only had five minutes to spare once I got to the airport. I stood impatiently, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I waited for Nita.

"Annabelle!" I heard her call to me. I turned grinning and jogged over to meet her, hugging her tightly.

"Hi! Oh my god, it's been forever! You look amazing!" I went on as we both pulled away.

"You look pretty good too, Mum," she glanced quickly down at my stomach before winking at me. I had forgotten how thick her accent was and couldn't help but smile when I heard it.

"I still plan on stealing your accent," I told her as I picked up one of her bags and led her to the subway station.

"How long have you been plotting that? Like, since we met?" she giggled and shook her head at me.

"Maybe," I said quickly and shifty my eyes back and forth quickly before laughing again.

"Shifty girl," she teased.

After we dropped her things off at the hotel where she was staying tonight – she was in New York for today and tomorrow before she got on another plane and headed south to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – we went and grabbed a quick lunch before heading to 51st and Broadway, where the Gershwin Theater is located.

"That was amazing! I will never look at the Wizard of Oz the same way again, though," she gushed as we walked out after the show was over. "But seriously, that was awesome!"

"I know right!" I agreed enthusiastically as we walked down Broadway. "It is definitely my favorite Broadway show! I saw it the first time it was on Broadway. I had come home to see everybody during winter break and my Aunt Theresa had come to visit at the same time and talked me into going with her. But anyways, do you have any specific places you want to go? Or are we just going into whatever stores we see along the way?"

"Whatever we see. I wouldn't know where to go," she laughed.

"Oh," I gasped and looked excitedly as her as we weaved through people, who obviously had never been taught to walk at a normal speed. "We can go to Toys 'R' Us and get on the Ferris wheel!" I suggested with a childish grin on my face. I really do not act my age at all.

"Yes," she agreed with an equally immature look of excitement on her face.

"Let's go!" I exclaimed and quickly planned out the quickest route in my head.

**Neal's POV**

I shifted in my chair and tried to make it look casual as I checked to see who was close enough to distinguish what exactly was on my computer screen. It's not like I was looking at anything really bad, just something I didn't want Peter to know about quite yet. I needed to do some more research before confronting him about it.

I had just clicked on the first result given to me by the search engine when I felt someone standing right behind me. "Neal," Peter's voice was tense and it sounded as if he was seriously debating snapping my neck. "What are you planning?"

"Nothing . . . yet," I answered honestly and turned slightly to look up at him.

"I swear to god, Caffrey," his voice steadily grew louder. But as people started to look over at us he stopped himself and gestured for me to go into his office. I sighed, but did as directed. If I wanted him to say yes to this idea I had, I needed to at least pretend to follow his directions for now. "Neal, if you even think about running, and dragging my sister down with you –"

"Calm down, Peter. I'm not running," I cut him off before he could get himself all whipped up.

"Really? An ex-con with a two mile radius and a pregnant girlfriend just casually looking up if it's safe for a woman to fly while she's pregnant? I'm sure that happens all the time," he snapped sarcastically and glared at me.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at him as I sat down. "Peter, I'm not running," I repeated. "If I had had a chance to finish my research, I was going to ask you about it. But I guess I'll just ask now and do the research later."

"Ask me what?" he was still eyeing me suspiciously as he took his own seat.

"Belle's birthday is next month, and I thought of something that would be perfect . . . but it's a few thousand miles out of my radius."

"What could she possibly want for her birthday that is that far away?"

"She doesn't know about this, and you cannot tell her about it," I told him quickly. The whole reason I was researching this at work was because I didn't want her to know about it. "And I want to take her to L.A."

"Why L.A. of all places?" I had the remarkable sense of déjà vu. It was like being back in the interrogation room again.

"Because that's where Capitol Tower is. Her favorite song was recorded there," I replied casually.

"Really?" he looked at me disbelievingly and shook his head. "I don't understand how you think of these things. But I'm sorry; you know it's not just up to me. I can't give you permission to go that far out of your radius. And, as much as I really want to trust you, it's hard to do when you're that far away."

"You don't have the authority, but you can talk to people that do. If I tried to talk to Hughes or anyone myself, they'd think I was just going to run. But if you talked to them – "

"Neal, I can't promise you anything," he cut me off and looked at me apologetically. "I'll try to talk to Hughes about it. But I can't guarantee an immediate answer . . . and I highly doubt the answer will be a yes."

"Ye of little faith," I grinned and winked at him. Peter was usually good at Hughes to agree with him. And if he could convince Hughes, then I doubt the other people involved would have an issue.

"Oh and by the way," he called after me before I could completely walk out of the office. Once I turned back and looked at him he continued, "It's safest for a pregnant woman to fly in her second trimester. By the time December 20th gets here, she'll be fine to get on a plane."

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**See! I told you I wouldn't take over a month this time! Anyways, there was a cameo by MissNitaGirl in this one(: I hope you liked it dear. I hope all of you liked it, really. Anyways, Belle's birthday in the next chapter! Yay! Along with some Peter POV! Exciting! Oh, and I think I forgot to mention this last chapter, but Min (Mozzie's girlfriend) was inspired by hippielicious. I meant to mention that when she first appeared, but I was in a rush when I was adding the author's note and forgot. Anyways, I'll try to have the next chapter up quickly.**

**Love you guys!**

**~TheRatPack**


	17. Chapter 16: December

**Don't shoot! I know I broke my promise, I'm sooooo sorry! But at least it's up now, right? If it makes you feel any better, you get to find out the sex of the baby in the chapter after this one!**

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**Stolen Sweets  
Chapter 16: December**

"_Her lips on his could tell him better than any of her stumbling words."  
~Margaret Mitchell_

**December 1  
Peter's POV**

"Burke," Hughes called my name as soon as I walked onto our floor and gave me the double-finger point. Uh-oh. "My office," he elaborated before disappearing through the door.

Neal gave me a look of sympathy combined with hopefulness before heading to his own desk. He asked me almost every day if I had heard anything about if her could take Annabelle to California, and every day I had to tell him, "No, not yet."

I took a deep breath and headed up to Hughes office. I was either going to finally get an answer for Neal, or I was going to get chewed out. We had an undercover operation last night, trying to catch an art thief, but Neal got recognized and the whole thing unraveled from there.

"Peter, I don't like the idea of Caffrey leaving his radius when he's on cases. I especially don't like the idea of him going out of state on vacation with his girlfriend – even if she is your sister." I tensed up, he was going to say no. and surprisingly I felt kind of disappointed. Part of me knew he was smart enough not to do anything stupid, and this whole thing was for Annabelle. "But, I've thought about it, Peter. You seem to trust him. And I trust your judgment."

I tried not to make my shock too obvious. "You're actually letting him go to California?"

"Yes, but there's a small catch," he replied and raised an eyebrow at me. "He can only go if you go with him. You can take Elizabeth and Chase if you want, but I refuse to let him out of this city without an agent. And since she is _your_ sister . . ." he trailed off. Message received.

"Now, about what happened yesterday," he started.

**December 17  
Belle's POV**

"So," I said casually to Cassidy, leaning my elbows on the counter as she made someone's coffee.

"Yes, dear?" she looked up at me once she handed the man his drink.

I took a sip of the hot chocolate she had made me and then answered, "My birthday is Monday . . ."

"No, Annabelle. I am not spoiling the surprise for you!" she insisted and crossed her arms.

"Come on," I groaned and looked at her pleadingly. "I won't tell him you told me! I swear I will act surprised!"

"No! You're a terrible actress!"

"I have three days to learn! Please?" I pushed my lower lip out, giving her the puppy-dog look.

"Noooo," she whined and covered her eyes. Then as if coming to a realization her head snapped up and she looked at me with wide eyes. "Wait! What are you even doing here? Go home, woman! You want a hint? You're getting a portion of your present early! Now get," she ranted and walked around the counter and led me to the door. "Okay, I love you! Bye baby Nugget." She hugged me tightly and patted my now rather prominent 15 1/2-week bump before ushering me out into the snow.

"Weirdo," I laughed and waved at her before she retreated back inside. I shoved my free hand inside the pocked of my coat and kept my other hand wrapped tightly around my hot chocolate, which, thankfully, was still hot enough to keep my hand from completely freezing.

Thankfully, the shop where Cassidy worked was less than a block away from our apartment and I was home and out of the cold in under five minutes. "I'm home," I announced as I walked in the door, sitting my drink on the end table next to the sofa so I could take my coat and scarf off.

"No, leave those on," Neal told me, with a smirk on his face as he walked into the living room from the hallway. He had a suitcase in each hand, one was mine, the other was his, and a book-bag slung over one shoulder, and Lena was following on his heels, dragging her own Finding Nemo suitcase.

"Why?" I asked, eyeing both him and the bags suspiciously. I gasped as the Burke in me reared its head, "Neal! Did you do something? Are we running?"

He rolled his eyes, but didn't get offended by my assumption . . . well he might've, but he didn't show it. "No, dear," he told me, adopting the television-husband tone of voice. "Your birthday is Monday, and part of your present is a vacation. Le and I already packed everything we'll need."

My jaw dropped and I stuttered for a minute before just going over to hug him tightly. Well, as tightly as Nugget would allow. I pulled his face to mine and kissed him, allowing it to last until he pulled away and gestured to Le, reminding me that we weren't alone. "Where are we going?"

"A place," he answered vaguely and smirked at me.

I rolled my eyes and lightly smacked his shoulder. "What place, idiot?"

"A place not in New York. Now let's head to the airport so we don't miss our flight," he replied. "Don't forget your hot chocolate."

"Le, where are we going sweetie?" I asked, grabbing her bag for her after I re-buttoned my coat and grabbed my hot chocolate and purse.

"I dunno," she answered in a sing-song voice and giggled, smiling widely at Neal as he turned off all the lights and then locked the front door after we were all out.

My jaw dropped again and I stared at him as we got in the elevator. "You've turned her against me, you monster!" I said dramatically and tried not to laugh.

"I know, I'm horrible," he agreed and smirked at me.

"You have an unhealthy obsession with surprising me, sir," I nodded at him before leaning my head on his shoulder as we waited through people getting on and off at other floors before we finally reached the bottom.

"Because you just make the most beautiful faces when you're excited about things," he replied and kissed the top of my head before carrying the bags out to the car.

"Come on, Le. I guess I'll have to wait. The stubborn man won't tell me anything," I conceded and lifted her onto my hip and handed her suitcase to Neal once he had our bags tucked safely into the trunk.

"I'm right here," he pointed out and looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

"I know," I smirked and opened the back door so I could get Le into her car seat.

"We goin' on a trip, Annabelle!" she told me as I buckled her in. "You 'cited?"

"I'm very excited," I smiled at her and kissed her cheek before shutting her door and going to get in the front passenger seat.

"You really are impatient," Neal chuckled when he noticed me fidgeting in my seat. If I wasn't shaking my leg, I was plucking at the hem of my shirt, or twisting my hair, or picking my nails, or digging through my purse, or flipping my phone open and snapping it shut again.

"Cause I wanna know where you're taking me," I whined. "And how you convinced the feds to let you go far enough outside of your radius that we have to fly there," I added as an afterthought as we got out in the airport parking lot and walked inside.

"Do you want to know who you can thank for that?" Neal asked as we got in the line to go through security.

"Uhm, sure?" I replied, unsure of what he was really talking about.

"You'll see once we get to the terminal," he smirked, once again leaving me to make my own assumptions.

"You enjoy torturing me," I pouted and allowed Le to go through the metal detectors ahead of me. All of us got through without a problem and we headed for our terminal as our bags went to wherever it is that bags go. It turns out the book-bag on his shoulder was our carry-on bag. He'd brought a book for each of us, some toys for Le, her favorite blanket, and a change of clothes for me if I got too hot – which I often did. Thanks hormones. You rock.

"That's only partially true," he teased and leaned down to kiss me quickly. "Oh, and as to your question about why they are letting me leave the state," he began and gestured to a group of three slightly ahead of us.

"Ohmygod!" I exclaimed in a rush and quickly went over to hug my brother and Elizabeth before snatching Chase. "You guys are coming with us?"

"They wouldn't let him so far out of his radius without an agent," Peter shrugged but grinned at me nonetheless.

I turned to look accusingly at Elle. "Elizabeth Amber Burke, you've known about this the whole time and you didn't tell me? Y'all are mean! I should just kidnap Chase now so you can't corrupt him," I joked and held Chase tighter to me as if I were about to take him.

"Fine, then I'll just kidnap Nugget once he or she is born," Elizabeth retorted with an evil smirk on her face.

"Oh, well then," I scoffed, pretending to be offended before I broke down and let out a giggle.

"Annabelle, you silly," Le commented from where she was now perched on Neal's side.

"Psh, girl, you're silly," I replied and stuck my tongue out at her.

"Really, you're a great role model," Peter said sarcastically.

"I try," I grinned at him and stretched up to mess up his hair.

I spent most of the flight in a deep sleep. I had never handled flying well, and if I was awake for too long I would get sick – I learned that on the many flights to and from New Orleans. The only times I was really aware of what was going on were the many times I'd have to get up to pee.

"Belle, wake up, we've gotta get off soon," Neal shook me awake just in time for the seatbelt light to come on.

After we finally landed, and I'm pretty sure I may have broken some bones in Neal's hand, the pilot's voice came over the intercom. "Alright everybody, we have landed at LAX, it is approximately eight PM, California time –"

Everything else the pilot said was drowned out when I heard where we were. "We're legit in California?"

"Legit," Neal confirmed, grinning as I began bouncing with excitement.

**December 20**

"Where are you taking me?" I bugged Neal for the hundredth time as we walked through the streets of L.A.

"To your birthday present," was all he said. He slipped his arm around my waist and held me tightly to his side. "Now be patient, Annabelle. We're almost there, I promise."

"Ughh," I groaned impatiently and leaned my head on his shoulder. "I think this is the first time in years I've been able to wear shorts on my birthday," I observed a few moments later, laughing slightly. To Neal's relief, I was giving up on interrogating him. I think I'll leave getting answers out of him to my brother. He's better at that anyway. "And I must say you look pretty hot in those jeans." I winked at him and grabbed his butt teasingly.

He just laughed at me and squeezed my side gently. "Look, we're almost there," he told me with a smirk on his face and pointed ahead to the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

I gasped and froze on the sidewalk. "We're going to the Capitol Tower?" I asked, looking at him in shock. "Do you know who recorded there? Oh my god, Neal!" I laughed happily and wrapped my arms tightly around him and planted a kiss on his lips. "You are too amazing."

"What would you say if I told you, I managed to pull some strings and there will be someone taking us up to Studio A?" he smirked at me after I pulled away and we began walking again.

I let out an excited giggle and resisted the urge to start skipping. "I'd say that I am the luckiest woman alive and you are too good to be true," I replied, smiling widely. "How do you come up with these things? Most people don't even know that this is where he recorded Come Fly With Me, but you fly me down here for my birthday. If the baby ends up taking more after you, I am gonna get some kickass mother's day gifts!"


	18. Chapter 17

**Stolen Sweets  
Chapter 17: Good Always Comes with Bad**

"_Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."  
F. Scott Fitzgerald_

**January 7**

"Nugget, you silly," Lena said and let out another high pitched giggle as she felt the baby kick again. Ever since we first started feeling the baby moving around, this had been her favorite pastime while we waited for Neal to come home from work. The two of us would stretch out on the couch and watch TV – she was currently in her Blue's Clues phase – and she would lay with her head resting on my belly, laughing gleefully every time she got kicked.

"I bet Nugget thinks you're silly too," I told her, teasingly, as I played idly with her pale blond hair, randomly braiding and unbraiding small sections of it.

"No way," she responded with another excited giggle. "We go to baby doctor soon?" she asked, for what I'm pretty sure was the sixth time since I picked her up from Cassidy's after work.

"Once Neal gets home we'll leave," I reminded her gently. I glanced at the clock, it was just past 4:30. "He should be here in a few minutes, sweetie."

"Yay! I'm 'cited! I wanna see Nugget," she burst, jumping from her position on my stomach to stand excitedly before me.

"Do you know what else is going to happen?" I asked her, grinning widely as I shared in her enthusiasm.

"What?" She was bouncing in place as her excitement continued to build.

"We get to find out if Nugget is a boy or a girl!" I informed her, moving so that I was sitting up.

"Wow! That is so cool!" she gasped and looked up at me with her eyes wide and a large smile on her face.

"I know! Now do you want to come help me pick out different clothes to see the doctor in?" I offered as I pushed myself off the couch.

"Yeah, I help," she chirped and nodded her head vigorously before scurrying back to my bedroom. I chuckled slightly at her before following behind.

"Do we want jeans or black pants?" I asked her, holding out the two articles for her to see.

"Jeans," she told me decisively, giving the dark blue material a slight tug before looking at me expectantly, signaling for me to continue on.

"Okay," I smiled at her and returned the black pants to their place in the closet and tossed the jeans onto my bed. "Now, Metallica, or stripes?" I held up one of my oversized t-shirts which still fit and a relatively new maternity top.

"Metallica," she replied instantly and pulled the black t-shirt from my grip and taking it to sit it next to my jeans before turning to give me a cheeky grin.

"Haha, that's my girl," I chuckled and gave her a high five. "Okay, now you go pick out a pair of sneakers for me while I put these on, okay?" By the time I had changed from my dark blue dress into the jeans and Metallica shirt, and Lena had selected my black and white checked Vans for me to put on, we could hear Neal's key in the front door.

"Neal, it's time for the doctor!" she shouted excitedly and ran back to the front room to jump up into his arms.

"I know it is," he grinned at her exuberance before sitting her back down on her feet. "Now go get your coat on so we can go."

"Is Cassie gonna meet us there? She mentioned something about wanting to come," I addressed him after putting on my own coat and scarf, letting him pull me into his arms as we waited for Le.

"As far as I know she is," he shrugged and kissed me quickly as Lena came rushing back out with her light purple coat on. Neal bent down quickly to help her zip it up and put her gloves and scarf on. "Do you want your hat?"

"No, it'll mess up my hair," she told him with a sassy tone and placed her hands on her hips before he picked her up.

"That's it," he said jokingly as we exited the apartment. "No more sleepovers with Aunt Cassidy. The last thing we need is a carbon copy of my sister."

"Be nice. I love your sister," I laughed slightly and lightly smacked his arm. "And that's not even Cassie's fault. Lena learned that attitude from me and Caroline."

"That's probably true," he agreed with a smile as we loaded into the elevator.

Thirty minutes later we pulled up in front of Dr. Mitchell's office, Cassidy waiting outside for us, looking impatient. "It's about time y'all got here," she said as we approached.

"Hi Aunt Cassie!" Lena greeted her loudly and held her arms out to be picked up.

"Hey monkey," Cass grinned and kissed her cheek before shifting Le to one hip so she could give Neal and me one-armed hugs. "You excited to see the baby?" she asked, turning back to Le as we all walked inside and out of the cold. Lena nodded enthusiastically and immediately went into an excited rambling as Neal and I went to sign in.

We ended up waiting for about ten minutes before Dr. Mitchell called us back. "Hey Annabelle, Neal," she smiled at us when we walked back. "And who are these two lovely ladies?" she asked, smiling kindly at Cassie and Lena.

"This is Neal's sister, Cassidy, and that is our god daughter, Lena," I introduced them as I sat on the exam table.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Mitchell. So is everyone excited to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl?" This question had been mainly directed at Lena, who was almost bouncing out of Cassidy's arms.

"Yeah! I want a girl to play with!" Lena announced excitedly. Along with her declaration to be Nugget's 'back-up Mommy' if I was busy, Lena had also decided last week that she wanted the baby to be a girl so they could play dress-up and watch princess movies together.

"Well, let's find out," the doctor smiled and then turned to me. "You know the drill, Annabelle."

"Ahhh, the cold stuff," I groaned and shuddered in anticipation as I laid back and moved my clothes out of the way before going to grab Neal's hand.

"Yes, the cold stuff," she chuckled at me as she squeezed it onto my stomach and I shivered.

First she did a quick once-over to check that everything was okay, and then she printed out a shot of the baby's profile. "Alright, the moment of truth," she announced with a grin on her face as she moved the instrument around on my stomach, trying to find the right angle. "Alright, you guys see that right there?" she asked and pointed to a spot on the screen right between where you could see the bottoms of Nugget's feet.

"Yeah," I nodded quickly and Neal and I tightened our grips on each other's hands and Cassidy's hand came to grab my shoulder.

"It looks like Miss Lena is getting her wish! You have a perfectly healthy 18-week-old baby girl in there," she finally told us, smiling widely as she watched our reactions.

Lena let out a cheer of joy, holding her hands up as if she had just won an award that she had wanted her whole life. Cassidy started jumping in place, chanting, "I'm getting a niece!" And as soon as I got all the gross gel off of me, Neal wrapped his arms tight around me and kissed me passionately – the kind of kiss that probably would have led to more if we were in a more private setting.

"We're having a little girl!" I said to him, the tears building up in my eyes.

**Monday, January 31**

"So have you finally picked a name for her? You had your 21 week appointment Friday, right?" Ashley Ledford asked me as we entered my now empty classroom for our lunch break.

"Yeah, and we decided on Payton Caroline," I replied with a grin as we sat down at the table in the front of the room.

"Aww, that is so cute!" she squealed as we pulled our sandwiches and containers of soup out of the Panera bags. "Does Carrie know you're naming your girl after her?"

"Mhm. She was so excited, she almost started crying!" I told her.

"So where does Payton come from?" she asked over a bite of her sandwich.

"It was Neal's grandmother's name. Damn, you know we forgot drinks?" I sighed and stood, grabbing my wallet. I felt slightly dizzy, but I just brushed it off, I probably just stood up too fast. I'd been doing that a lot lately. "I'm gonna run down to the vending machine, do you want me to grab you something?"

"Coke, if you wouldn't mind," she smiled gratefully and handed me a dollar. "Regular, you know how I hate that diet crap."

"Be right back," I winked and lightly pushed her head as I walked out into the hallway.

As I walked, I noticed that the dizziness wasn't going away, like it normally did. But instead it was getting worse. The walls were no longer staying in their proper places and spots kept appearing in front of my eyes. I had stopped in the middle of the hall as I attempted to maintain my balance.

I could vaguely hear Ashley coming up behind me, but she sounded like she was miles away and all that could reach me was a faint echo of her heels clicking on the linoleum floors. "Hey, Annabelle, I changed my mind – wait, are you okay?"

I opened my mouth to answer her, or at least I tried to. But the spots in front of my eyes rapidly transformed and I was soon swallowed up by full-on blackness.

**Neal's POV**

Mortgage fraud. I hate mortgage fraud. There was nothing exciting or challenging about it. Give me a good art theft or bond forgery. Something exciting, e.g., not mortgage fraud.

As I diligently worked on the paperwork – this can also be interpreted as 'checked twitter and texted Cassidy to see what Lena was up to' – my blackberry began buzzing in my hand, interrupting me in the middle of typing another message. I didn't recognize the number.

"Hello?" I asked with a sigh, leaning back in my chair as my eyes scanned over all the agents going about their business.

"Neal Caffrey?" the male voice on the other line asked.

"Yes, who's this?" I sat back up and my eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

"This is Dr. DiBlasi at Mercy Hospital. Your fiancée, Annabelle Burke, was brought into the emergency room after passing out at work. She just woke up and she has been asking for you," he replied.

"Is the baby okay?" I asked him, jumping up and pulling my coat on quickly and put my hat on my head before heading out to the elevator. I didn't even think to tell anyone where I was going.

"The fetus is perfectly fine. Her coworker was standing nearby and caught her before she could hit the floor. We believe it was caused by issues with her blood pressure. I can explain it to you both further once you get here."

"Got it. Tell her I'll be there soon," I replied before hanging up and hailing a cab.

I spent most of the ride staring out the window, anxiously waiting for the driver to pull up in front of the hospital. But as we got further away from the FBI offices, something began nagging at the back of my mind. My radius. The hospital was just outside of my two mile limit.

The thought of not going to see her didn't even cross my mind. They would either understand the circumstances and make an exception. Or I could easily orchestrate another prison break. Annabelle had said she had been missing the warmer weather down south. Maybe I could take her to Texas, show her where I had grown up. Or maybe we could go somewhere in Louisiana, she loved it there. We could always try Florida, or Georgia. South Carolina is nice too.

"Buddy, you gonna sit there all day?" the cabbie barked, snapping me from my thoughts.

"Right, here," I responded in a rush and tossed some random bills up at him before jumping from the cab and rushing into the visitors entrance. I paused momentarily to glance down at my anklet. The normally green light was now blinking red and I could've sworn there were sirens in the distance.

"Annabelle Burke, what room is she in?" I asked the receptionist, quickly signing in as George Devore.

"Three-forty," she answered, sounding bored. I was already running for the stairs as the last syllable left her mouth.

"Belle," I sighed in relief as I entered the room to see her sitting up, absentmindedly picking at the tape holding her IV in place. "Are you okay? What happened?" I asked, sitting on the edge of her bed and pulling her into my arms.

"My blood pressure got too high and I passed out," she replied, a look of distress coming to her face. "I'm sorry I pulled you away from all that exciting mortgage fraud paperwork," she added, teasingly.

"I think I'll survive," I laughed and kissed her lightly. "So what did the doctor tell you?"

The stressed look made a return along with a hint of resentment. "Bed rest and as little stress as possible. Which means I need to take even more time off work. I don't know how long they're going to put up with me missing so much time! I wouldn't be surprised if they just fire me when I tell them."

"We'll figure it out, whatever happens," I reassured her even though the thought worried me just as much. My paycheck definitely could not support a family of four, and I don't think Annabelle would exactly approve of my . . . alternative ways of making money.

"So where's Peter?" she asked, looking over my shoulder as if her brother might be hiding behind me, just waiting to jump out at her.

"Uhh . . ." I couldn't look at her. There was no reason to tell her. At this point the sirens I thought I'd heard earlier had become loud and clear.

"Neal, please tell me you didn't . . . You left without telling anyone where you were going, didn't you?" she gasped, her eyes instantly filling with tears.

"Belle," I started, but she cut me off.

"Neal, why would you do that? They're going to take you back to prison! What am I going to tell Lena? Or Cassidy? Or my parents? What if they don't give you another chance? You'll be in prison for four more years! I can't raise two kids alone!" Her breathing was quickly becoming uneven and the beeping of the heart monitor transitioned from the steady beat to a quick, erratic pace. So much for as little stress as possible.

"Annabelle, I promise I'm not leaving you for long. I'll talk to Peter and we'll figure something out," I swore and pulled her into a tight embrace. I didn't bother mentioning my various back-up plans.

We sat together, silent except for the small sobs that occasionally escaped her as she hid her face in my neck. I could hear agents running up the stairs. Then they entered the hallway. They were looking for me one room at a time. "Caffrey," Diana started as she entered the room. She gave me a disappointed and apologetic look. She shook her head at me sadly before stepping back out into the hall, "He's in here Peter!" Annabelle's arms tightened around me and she began crying even harder.

"Neal . . . why would you make me do this again?" Peter looked at me in confusion.

"I'm sorry, Peter," was all I could really think to say as I untangled Belle's arms from around my neck.

"Peter, please don't take him away from me," she pleaded, looking at him desperately as he tightened the cuffs around my wrist.

"I'm sorry, Annabelle. But I don't have a choice," he sighed before leading me out of the room and reading me my rights. As if I didn't have those memorized by now.

* * *

**I know, I broke my promise. But at least it's finally up.**


End file.
